SoftInloveRox Horrible, fascist and poorly acted

SeeQuant Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

SanEat A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

Hadrina The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

calvinnme a world where certain modernities have gotten stuck in time.Written and directed by Lawrence Kasdan, this film stars William Hurt as Ned Racine, a mediocre attorney in a small southern town who is more famous for one particular legal screw-up - one that figures prominently into the plot - than his small time victories. He gets passionately involved with Matty Walker (Kathleen Turner), beautiful classy wife of rather absentee (always off on business) and somewhat shady businessman Edmund Walker (Richard Crenna) who has implied mob ties. The thing is, what to do about it? They could just run away together, but Matty signed a pre-nup and gets nothing in any divorce, plus she does not want to be poor. This pushes Ned toward a more final solution, a solution that might be made easier considering Walker's mob ties as a smokescreen for any vanishing act Edmund might appear to make.Ned is friends with the local sheriff, Oscar Grace (J.A. Preston) with Ted Danson thrown in before he was the world's most famous Boston bartender in "Cheers". Grace is the voice of the law, Danson's character is the voice of pragmatism.This is an anachronistic southern noir that is supposedly taking place in the time the movie was made - 1981 - but doesn't realize thirty years have passed. All of that sweating, the premium placed on a night breeze, all of that ice on sexy necks and down blouses. 90% of the sex appeal - and atmosphere - would disappear if somebody would just turn on the A.C! Mickey Rourke plays a firebug and one of Ned's clients who - without being told EXACTLY what his attorney is up to, throws Ned's advice back at him - "Any time you try a decent crime you got 50 ways you can mess up. You think of 25 of them and you're a genius. And you ain't no genius". Rourke's character says this because he genuinely likes Ned. Gosh Rourke was a handsome guy just dipped in masculine mojo back in the day.Matty's past is quite mysterious. She talks about being heavy into drugs when she was young and how a lawyer helped her get clean and gave her a job in his office. And then she met Edmund Walker. Too bad the internet and google didn't exist in 1981, because it could have saved old Ned some tragedy. The lack of google is more tragic than the existence of air conditioning that goes unused.The jazzy/bluesy score is by John Barry, the stylistic cinematography by Richard H. Kline (The Boston Strangler (1968)) . I highly recommend this timeless noir.

Ben Parker Its hot, temperature-wise. William Hurt and Kathleen Turner are passing the time by having an affair, when Bill gets a very bad idea: why not do away with her husband?Had I known there was a neo-noir element in this movie, I might have watched it sooner. I pretty much expected a non-stop smut-fest. Well, there was hardly any of that, actually. This is not your explicit sex-drama like Last Tango in Paris; there's a lot of sweating, hot breath, horniness, but enough of a thriller element to keep all that from getting too awkward.Speaking of awkward, I kept getting swept up by Body Heat, when suddenly William Hurt's moustache would creep up and spoil it. Bill just didn't do it for me, and I never really got why he would do it for Kathleen, but I just ignored that personal reaction and found an enjoyable thriller, of the hot-breathed variety.

jmillerdp The problem with this neo-noir is that, since it so exactly follows the femme fatale formula of classic film noir, you know exactly what's going to happen from beginning to end. How William Hurt's character can't is mind bending! You really want to just yell at the screen at him! Sheesh.Since the plot is a lost cause, what else to consider is the filmmaking. Lawrence Kasdan stymies himself by writing the aforementioned script as he did. So, his direction is only going to be able to do so much, and it isn't enough. John Barry's film score is the clear highlight! It is excellent and atmospheric. But, everything else is very routine.***** (5 Out of 10 Stars)

mrb1980 Most of the attention for "Body Heat" in 1981 was understandably directed toward Kathleen Turner's spectacular debut as the manipulating and conniving Matty Walker. However, the entire main cast (J. A. Preston, William Hurt, Kim Zimmer, Richard Crenna, Mickey Rourke and Ted Danson) are just as good.The plot is a remake of the old "Double Indemnity" plot from 1944 with a few added twists. Matty Walker meets incompetent Florida attorney Ned Racine (Hurt) and convinces him to kill her wealthy, ruthless husband Edmund (Richard Crenna). Arsonist Teddy Lewis (Rourke) provides an incendiary device to Racine in order to destroy evidence after the murder. Assistant District Attorney Peter Lowenstein (Danson) and detective Oscar Grace (Preston) investigate Edmund Walker's murder and find that an unidentified party (Matty Walker) is providing evidence to implicate Racine in the killing. In the final part of the movie, Matty Walker appears to have been killed in an explosion, but Racine eventually discovers that she has switched identities with and killed old friend Mary Ann Simpson (Zimmer) and has disappeared with the Walker estate money to an unidentified tropic island. Yes, it was really Simpson's body left behind, and Walker gets away with it! Yes, Turner was luminous and breathtaking in her first theatrical movie. Her sensuous manner with underlying evil undertones really makes this film click. The other actors do fine jobs, too. Hurt could have overplayed his dumb attorney role, but is just perfect; Crenna plays a really unlikeable shady businessman; Preston is an idealistic police detective; Rourke is enjoyably slimy as a professional criminal; and Danson provides spark as a public attorney who is friends with Racine and tries to help him, even when the evidence begins to mount.This film has a wonderfully "natural" feel, in which everyone is sweating and miserable during a steamy Florida heat wave. The characters talk like normal people do, wear normal clothes, and have the weaknesses that we all have. The music score, especially during the closing credits, is top-notch. It's a very realistic movie, and I'm still as impressed as I was 32 years ago when I saw it in a theater. It's timeless, and it's still a wonderful film.