Masquerade (1988)

Thanks for the memories!

good back-story, and good acting

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

If Masquerade had been filmed about 30 years earlier, it would have been directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starred Cary Grant and Grace Kelly. The storyline is very Hitchcock. Enchanting heiress Meg Tilly is never really sure who truly loves her and who is after her money. Surely her drunken, salacious stepfather John Glover and his trampy mistress Dana Delaney fall into the latter category. The current lawman Doug Savant seems to be carrying a torch for her, but Tilly is soon all eyes for local gigolo Rob Lowe, who dumps rich married Kim Cattrall and sweeps Tilly off of her feet into a whirlwind romance and marriage. And then Tilly starts having near misses on her life.Although the film fails to reach its full potential, there is a lot to recommend it, particularly for fans of the genre. The beautiful Hamptons scenery and the foray into the lifestyles of the rich and famous chief among them. The screenplay is well thought out and, starting from the two-thirds mark, twists and turns all over the place, but without losing its credibility. While Bob Swaim's direction is sometimes flaccid and allows the pace to slacken a bit too often, it usually regains its composure within a reasonable timeframe.Glover and Delaney have a blast in their roles. And there is strong support from Savant as the local lawman with a fancy of his own for Tilly. Cattrall has a largely thankless task - she gets to doff her duds and engage in sex scenes with Lowe to establish his credentials as a gigolo - but her character ends up being excess baggage with not even a tenuous relation to the main plot.The leads are a mixed bag. Tilly is quite wonderful as the heiress. She nicely walks the line between naivete and savvy - never making her heroine too suspicious, but not making her a pushover either. We believe her that she is in love with Lowe and we believe that she has the smarts to navigate her way through the various treacheries that litter her life. It is a rock solid performance and it is a shame that she is no longer acting. By contrast, Lowe is no Cary Grant. I have nothing against Lowe, but he performs much better in support or an ensemble cast than when called upon to lead the way. He is an attractive, amiable, but not especially charismatic leading man. As eye candy that would attract both Tilly and Cattrall, Lowe is semi-believable and contributes a couple of welcome nude scenes. However, when he needs to communicate some of the mystery of the man in question, his performance falters. The screenplay really needs us to wonder whether this guy really loves Tilly or may be trying to murder her - and we do wonder. Unfortunately, we wonder because the screenplay prompts us and because Lowe is often so vacuous in important moments that it is impossible to tell what, if anything, he is feeling. By the time the film concludes and provides us with our answer, we realize that Lowe's performance has laid no groundwork for the denouement. His acting here provides such limited impact/emotion that we have nothing invested in his character outside of what his plans for Tilly may be. Savant's supporting character actually ends up being more intriguing and better acted than the lead. This is truly a case where the film would have benefited from a stronger actor in the lead role.That said, fans of the genre will still find much to enjoy and admire here.

I liked it. Setting and script are interesting, though not always especially original-- some of the plot twists seem to be thrown in because the story starts to lag. There is one fairly steamy sex scene between Lowe and Tilly, from the days when audiences liked sex scenes that didn't look like rape scenes.As in so many films since the 1960s, the acting is so technically skilled and low-key it can fool an audience into thinking it's not acting at all...until they see the same actors playing totally different roles in other movies. Tilly is just superb; you don't see her at all, you just see the shy heiress. Even pretty-boy Lowe is believable in an absurd role that must have been hard to play (among other things, in his opening love scene, he hides the family jewels behind a door with a slick little move). Cattrall, in a small part, is excellent-- her sloppy character just seems to have turned up. And Glover (with messed-up Caesar hairdo) is his usual effectively spooky self as the villain. Delaney doesn't have a lot to do but she's loose and convincing whenever she's on.You can tell this one was written for the screen by the name the writer chose for the heiress: "Olivia Lawrence".

I liked a lot of this film. The yachting scenes and the wonderful score by John Barry really added to the film. Sometimes I seemed to be watching 'Thunderball', the score of 'Masquerade' was so obviously from the same composer.I really liked Meg Tilly, whom I had never heard of before this film. She was the perfect choice for the role of Olivia, the less-than-stunning heiress swept away by the gorgeous sailor Tim ( Rob Lowe). I never realized Meg is 4 years older than Rob until I consulted their entries in the IMDb. Here she plays a naive heiress several years younger than her love interest very convincingly.The film alludes to the death of Olivia's mother in an explosion on her yacht. Since this death would greatly benefit Gateworth, he likely had a hand in it. Cop Mike mentions how many propane explosions occur each year, so this hints that he engineered this 'accident'. However this point is never cleared up in the film.Rob Lowe and Meg Tilly really had chemistry together. Olivia had sort of drifted through her life in a fog because facing reality was too painful. Tim really cut through her defenses and awakened her to the joys of true love. Olivia immediately became pregnant and was overjoyed to have a child with her new love. Olivia's life became a joy instead of a long nightmare. What kept getting in the way was the idiotic plot. Apparently the cop Mike had worked the sailboat racing circuit before joining the police force in Hampton Shores. He met Tim and Olivia's stepfather Gateworth and hatched a scheme to murder Olivia and loot her estate.I could never figure out where the two outsiders expected to share in the loot from the estate. If Olivia died childless and unmarried, Gateworth stood to inherit the entire estate as the sole surviving heir. Why was accomplice Tim supposed to marry Olivia and muddy the chances of inheriting the estate? If Gateworth did in fact inherit the whole estate, why would he have shared the proceeds with his two accomplices? If these two suddenly became rich after the estate was settled, it would increase suspicion of foul play. Gateworth would already be under suspicion as the person to profit most from the untimely death of Olivia.The cop Mike should have deduced that he would wind up dead after contributing to the death of Olivia. His knowledge of the circumstances of Olivia's death would always be a threat to Gateworth. Tim would also be a threat to the continued enjoyment of Gateworth's new riches. After the marriage of Tim and Olivia and the death of Gateworth, Mike would have no claim on the estate. He would have to blackmail Tim with planted evidence that Tim had murdered Gateworth's girlfriend to shut her up. If evidence of Tim's guilt suddenly appeared long after the girlfriend's death, questions about why evidence had been withheld would arise.Tim's mistress Brooke Morrison, wife of his employer, was blackmailed into providing an alibi for Tim when Gateworth wound up dead in Olivia's bedroom. Brooke testified to the police that Tim had been in her bed when Gateworth was shot in Olivia's bedroom. The film fails to consider the problem Tim would have appearing in Brooke's bedroom fresh from his recent love scene with Olivia. To put it delicately, Brooke's nose would have to be numb not to detect the scents of recent lovemaking on her boy-toy Tim.Strangely Brooke's husband never found out what his wife had been up to or else didn't care. He continued to employ Tim on his racing boat and sought his services in future racing events.The film finale killed off almost everyone to tie off the plot threads. I could never understand how rogue cop Mike could hope to murder Olivia right under the nose of the Chief Of Police and escape the consequences.It seemed that the writers ran out of ideas on how to write the climax. I suppose the viewer was supposed to just be swept along with the flow and not think too hard about the logic of the plot.

Ok.. This movie stars Rob Lowe(The West Wing), Meg(whatever happened to) Tilly, John Glover( in his A**hole role that he always does well but looks creepy and Doug Savant ( which is best known as the gay guy off of Melrose Place. I remember watching this movie back when it first came out and decided to rent it again after all those years. The Guy who wrote this movie, Dick Wolf is a great writer and he must have been testing out his sea legs with this trash. Meg Tilly acts and sounds like she's on drugs, Rob Lowe acts devilish along with John Glover who by the way looks like his hairstylist had a little too much fun with his hair and Doug Savant APPEARS to be the nice guy.*****SPOILER ALERT********************* Rich Girl graduates college, Rich Girl comes home gets a wonderful greetings from her Cop Friend and her horrid stepfather who lives off of her bankroll because her mother had a very bad attorney. Rich Girl meets Bad Boy Sailor. Stepfather appears to hate Bad Boy Sailor, and in a fit one night barges in when Rich Girl and Bad Boy are in bed. Bad Boy shoots stepfather, Rich Girl covers up, Cop Friend immediately suspects Bad Boy, Stepfather's Girlfriend hangs self and to celebrate Rich Girl gets married to Bad Boy Sailor and finds out she is pregnant with Child and we then learn the truth about her Bad Boy Sailor when we see a great photo op on the wall at the cop's place. We then realize Cop is the Bad Cop, and the Bad Boy Sailor wants to play the good guy all because his hit is pregnant.. AW.. we feel sorry for him.. NOT.... This movie could have been better if the writer rewrote the Bad Boys and the plot a little differently. The movie ends on a surprise bad note and leaves you wishing that one of the characters ended up alive... If you watch.. beware because this movie can be watched in 10 minutes on fast foward and you can get the whole movie that way in less time so you don't end up disappointed.