Look, I always knew about The Hot Spot (1990) because of an adolescent crush on Jennifer Connelly. A neo-noir directed by Dennis Hopper was also an alluring proposition, Don Johnson in the lead as an opportunistic drifter in a small Texan town, caught between two archetypical babes, the girl next door (Connelly) and the southern belle vamp (Virginia Madsen). Hopper was originally supposed to be making a film from a Mike Figgis script, but ditched that to settle upon an older screenplay adaptation he found of a 1953 novel by Charles Williams, Hell Hath No Fury, a screenplay originally planned as a Robert Mitchum vehicle in the early 1960s.
A little over two hours, this isn’t a pacy thriller. The Hot Spot is content to luxuriate in the small town streets, car lots, strip joints and watering holes, the rickety fans and gusts of dry wind. The film ambles along as a hothouse melodrama, Hopper and his cinematographer Ueli Steiger framing the characters like they were painted covers of dime-store pulp novels: Johnson with a cig looking out a motel window lit by the blinds; Connelly in a pressed skirt staring out an office window; or Madsen hiking up her dress, driving a pink open top convertible. Cheesecake photography time, with the trio of actors playing up their archetypes, particularly Madsen with her catty one-liners and oversexed attitude.
The Hot Spot is backed by a great collection of character actors in support like Jerry Hardin, Charles Martin Smith, Jack Nance, Barry Corbin and William Sadler as a sleazy blackmailer. The bluesy score adds to the ambling nature. While some may chafe at its leisurely crawl, a bank heist and a blackmail plot as the criminal sub-plots; the major source of friction is Johnson’s libido pulling and pushing between Madsen and Connelly, which side of his nature will win out. There’s an appropriately twisted conclusion suitable for a sweaty neo-noir throwback.
VHS Tracking 