Jennifer 8
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Jennifer 8 |
| Original title | Jennifer Eight |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1992 |
| length | 120 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Bruce Robinson |
| script | Bruce Robinson |
| production |
Scott Rudin Gary Lucchesi |
| music | Christopher Young |
| camera | Conrad L. Hall |
| cut | Conrad Buff IV |
| occupation | |
| |
Jennifer 8 (Original title: Jennifer Eight ) is an American film of the thriller genre from 1992 . The director was Bruce Robinson who also wrote the script . Andy García and Uma Thurman played the main roles .
action
The Los Angeles police officer John Berlin moved to the small town of Eureka for work. There he is initially dealing with an apparently routine case: a body was found in a garbage dump, and everything points to suicide. By chance an officer discovered a woman's hand there, but it had nothing to do with the suicide. The routine investigation expands into a large-scale search for clues. John Berlin quickly suspects a serial offender in the course of the investigation. He assumes seven victims so far. The first case file is named Jennifer .
John Berlin's partner in Eureka is Freddy Ross, who used to be his police trainer and is now his brother-in-law. Like Berlin's new police colleagues, he thinks little of his eagerness to serve. But Berlin finds out that the previous investigations into the series of murders were more than incomplete. Microscopic scrapes on all the fingertips of the woman's hand indicate that the dead person scanned Braille and must therefore have been blind. Freddy Ross and John Berlin therefore pay a visit to the nearby home for the blind, as Berlin suspects the serial offender to be in the immediate vicinity.
The blind Helena Robertson may have met the perpetrator when a woman named Amber left her dorm. She is therefore questioned as a witness. Berlin suspects that she could become the next victim of the killer. He's guarding them. A love affair develops between Helena and Berlin.
When a stranger, allegedly a police officer, asked about Helena in the home for the blind at Christmas and Berlin found out about it at the private Christmas party of Freddy Ross and his wife (Berlin's sister Margie), he saw his suspicions finally confirmed. Heavily armed, Berlin and his partner Freddy Ross rush to the dormitory late at night and monitor the complex from their car. When they see the beam of light from a flashlight in the dormitory, which is orphaned during the holidays, Berlin penetrates the building, but is knocked out by the killer - Ross is shot with Berlin's gun.
The in-house investigator St. Anne, who has been washed with water, thinks Berlin is the culprit and wants to recommend that the public prosecutor's office indict Berlin with murder. He rejects Berlin's explanations and argues that Ross was hit by bullets from Berlin's gun, the flashlight was that of the caretaker who made an inspection, and the stairwell door that was snapped back against Berlin by the strong wind that night and not by one third person had been moved. Berlin, according to St. Anne, confused by the subsequent fall, accidentally shot his partner from the fire escape because he thought Freddy was the supposed killer due to his obsession. Then Berlin noticed his mistake and deliberately killed Freddy Ross in order to blame the stranger for the crime.
Shortly afterwards, the real killer - a policeman named John Taylor - breaks into Helena's dormitory because he wants to be the only witness to finally kill the blind woman. He follows them in the hallways of the house. When she turns around, apparently cornered, one sees Freddy's widow Margie, who took over Helena's role during the pursuit. She is armed and shoots the killer.
Trivia
When John Berlin and the blind Helena are lying next to each other on a bed at Christmas, the background music is “ Silent Night, Holy Night ” in German.
Reviews
The lexicon of international films wrote that the film was "a conventionally staged, but thanks to a cunning script, an exciting crime thriller which, not least because of the policeman's differentiated character study, is above the average of similar genre fare" .
The editorial staff of the television magazine Prisma said: “The attractively cast thriller comes from the time when Hollywood cinema began to discover the serial killer as a fascination. With "Das Schweigen der Lämmer" (1990), Jonathan Demme had shown that the topic could be successful both at the box office and with critics. On the plus side, "Jennifer Eight" has exciting and frightening sequences, on the other hand the story has considerable holes in the logic. The fact that, for example, the blind Helena cannot hear the villain taking photos of her bathing (cameras were not yet silent back then!) Is completely unbelievable. The end is also unsatisfactory. "
Awards
Bruce Robinson , John Malkovich , Uma Thurman and Conrad L. Hall won the awards of the Cognac Festival du Film Policier in different categories.
The German Film and Media Assessment FBW in Wiesbaden awarded the film the rating particularly valuable.
Web links
- Jennifer 8 in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The New York Times: Jennifer Eight
- Review of the film music on Filmmusikwelt.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ Jennifer 8 in the Lexicon of International Films , accessed May 27, 2008
- ↑ Jennifer 8 , prisma.de