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Created Sep 14, 2012 06:40PM PST • Edited May 11, 2013 01:56AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Good 3.0

   Glamorous L.A. noir from back when real men wore fedoras makes Mulholland Falls a high calorie treat. A sultry Jennifer Connolly cavorting with John Malkovich and Nick Nolte makes it a guilty pleasure. Cheesy dialogue makes it a bit tough to swallow.

   Should this luxo crime thriller be better? Much.

4. Acting

   Very Good 3.5

   Jennifer Connelly and John Malkovich give the movie’s best performances. Connelly’s retro glamour makes her an ideal 1940s pinup, while Malkovich can essay an intelligent creep in his sleep.

   The rest are fair to middling, including Nick Nolte as a cardboard LAPD Detective, with Chazz Palminteri, Michael Madsen and Chris Penn as his meathead squad. Melanie Griffith adds nothing as Nolte’s wife.

   Several notables play bit parts.

   • Treat Williams as a nefarious Colonel.
   • Kyle Chandler as his loyal aide.
   • Daniel Baldwin as a domineering FBI agent.
   • Andrew McCarthy as a scared witness.
   • Aaron Neville as the world’s best Nite Spot Singer
   • Bruce Dern as a police chief who sees no evil in his own department.
   • Rob Lowe as a prettyboy mobster.

   Then there’s legendary stuntman Buddy Joe Hooker as the DC-3 Pilot.

5. Male Stars Good 3.0

6. Female Stars Great 4.0

7. Female Costars OK 2.5

8. Male Costars Great 4.0

10. Film

    Good 3.0

    Filmed at Warner Hollywood Studios in Hollywood, this very Hollywood film about L.A. looks marvelous. If only its screenplay were more than just barely OK.

    Lots of rock-em, sock-em action from stunt Coordinator Buddy Joe Hooker and his 25 stunt players.

11. Direction Very Good 3.5

12. Play Barely OK 2.0

    Cheesy dialogue on top of a good – albeit contrived – story.

13. Music Very Good 3.5

    Aaron Neville bumps it up to VG.

14. Visuals Perfect 5.0

    Legendary cinematographer Haskell Wexler gives the film a gorgeous patina of old-time L.A. beauty. His DP credit over Jennifer Connolly’s lingerie-clad body is worth framing.

    What does Nolte’s character drive? A ’49 Buick Roadmaster convertible. Four VentiPorts baby!

15. Content

16. Edge

    Sordid 3.1

    Jennifer Connelly – at her bustiest – gets fondled by John Malkovich and Nick Nolte, making Mulholland Falls somewhat of a prurient classic. It also makes it clear that moviestars are different than the rest of us, at least in terms of on-the-job experiences.

17. Sex Erotic 3.5

18. Violence Brutal 3.1

19. Rudeness Profane 2.8

21. Reality

    Surreal 2.5

    The movie jams a bogus atomic weapons story into a more grounded LAPD yarn. It doesn’t come close to ringing true, unlike the L.A. neo-noir movies to which it’s compared – Chinatown and L.A. Confidential.

22. Circumstantial Supernatural 3.3

23. Biological Surreal 2.5

24. Physical Glib 1.8