- You can stand here with me if you want, but you'll have to agree not to talk about the heat.
- That's how Ned Racine (William Hurt) first approaches Matty Walker (Kathleen Turner), a woman he has followed at night from an outdoor concert to a quiet ocean overlook. To say that Ned is a pickup artist is to misapply the term "artist." More accurate would be to call him a sleazebag willing to do or say anything to get women in bed. As it happens, Ned also isn't very good at his job as a lawyer. Early in the film, a judge berates him, requesting that he bring "either a better defense, or a better class of client" to the courtroom. On their first encounter, Matty comments to Ned, "You aren't too smart, are you? I like that in a man." Ned retorts, "What else do you like? Lazy? Ugly? Horny? I got 'em all."
- So why is it that Matty and Ned eventually end up together? It turns out that's a question that Ned should have been asking himself, but he's happy enough spending his summer nights wrapped in Matty's loving arms. And are those nights ever hot! There is enough steam here, of both the literal and figurative varieties, that theaters must have cranked up the air conditioning for its original run. One gathers that some of Ned's perspiration stems from the existence of Matty's husband Edmund (Richard Crenna), a real-estate swindler who spends his weeknights out of town. ("My favorite kind" of husband, Ned quips.) When the two men finally meet in what we assume is an accidental encounter, Edmund casually lets slip that he wouldn't hesitate to kill any man who slept with Matty. But that gets Ned to thinking...if somebody has to die, why not make it Edmund?
- After consulting a stereotypically low-class client named Teddy (Mickey Rourke) on the details of bomb-making, Ned and Matty succeed in killing Edmund in what is meant to look like a botched arson job. As is often the case in such films, however, the meticulously planned murder creates more problems than it solves. One day, Ned gets a call asking about Edmund's will that inexplicably features his signature. It was witnessed by a woman named Mary Ann Simpson (Kim Zimmer), whom Ned may have met but whom nobody can now find. Before long, Ned's redoubtable friends Peter (Ted Danson) and Oscar (J.A. Preston) confront Ned about his possible connection with Edmund's death, but any real proof hinges on the discomforting testimony of an uncertain young witness (Carola McGuinness). Finally, Ned hears from Teddy that a woman matching Matty's description has been asking about bombs, too. Needless to say, Ned starts checking doors before opening them.
- I remember having trouble convincing myself to see Body Heat for the first time because I had heard it described as an "80's remake of Double Indemnity," a phrase which would strike terror in the heart of any film buff. Fortunately for everyone, writer/director Lawrence Kasdan takes the material in new and fascinating enough directions that you can love both films without even needing to acknowledge their similar plots and themes. As good as Kasdan's contributions are, not to mention cinematographer Richard H. Cline's excellent use of low lighting punctuated by red-hot colors, the real keys to this film's success may be the performances by William Hurt and Kathleen Turner, neither of whom was especially famous when the film was made. Turner, in particular, used her incredible performance here to define herself as an actress whose internal temperature "runs a couple of degrees high" in pretty much all of her films. If Body Heat has a fault, it is that its ending is slightly over-explained, but there is admittedly some satisfaction in seeing a character's ambition "to be rich and live in an exotic land" realized. Too bad Ned didn't pledge "to be less of a sap" in his yearbook.
