Sliver

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After a surprisingly short wait, successful publishing executive “Carly” (Sharon Stone) finds herself able to move into an apartment on the twentieth floor of a plush Manhattan block. Initially, her neighbours remark on how similar she looks to it’s previous occupant - a woman who leapt from the balcony! She’s made of stronger stuff, though, and sets no store by superstition until she meets “Lansford” (Tom Berenger) who starts to fill her head with conspiracy theories about “Zeke” (William Baldwin) - a slickly creepy fellow whom we know has an array of illicit surveillance equipment dotted about the building and who is no respecter of anyone’s privacy. Yet another suspicious death brings the cops (CCH Pounder) to the building and now “Carly” has to face up to the fact that quite possibly her enigmatic new lover might be up to no good! The question for her, though, is whom - if anyone - can she trust? Stone does bring a bit of sexiness to her role, but otherwise this is an unremarkable meander of a film with little to engage us. Baldwin tries to imbue his high-tech character with some sleaziness, but that just ends up more like wheeziness and the whole murder mystery is seriously and quite lazily undercooked - relying on the hidden cameras to present a sense of the creepily prurient and a few sterile sex scenes. Remote controls feature quite often here, and perhaps that’s the most useful piece of kit in our armoury when watching it?

Some steamy scenes I expect from a 90s erotic thriller and for the most part was entertaining if not ridiculous premise, though acting wise Sharon Stone was fine though. Nothing really memorable compared with Basic Instinct, Fatal Attraction or Wild Things, the latter the best of trashy thrillers. Still, never found myself bored and a decent twist at the end, so there's that. **2.75/5**