Disclosure (1994)
– I first “discovered” Michael Douglas in Don’t
Say a Word, a taut thriller which colored the way I see him; Douglas is, I
contend, at his best when he’s playing an everyman with his back against the
wall (exception: Gordon Gekko in Wall
Street). And in Disclosure, adapted from Michael Crichton’s novel of the same name,
Michael Douglas gets to do just that – and boy, does he shine. Douglas becomes embroiled in a sexual
harassment scandal after his new boss and former flame Demi Moore puts the
moves on him. Don’t forget, it’s a
Crichton story, so there’s something else going on too, which I won’t spoil;
part of the fun of the movie is piecing together the intricate plot being
sprung on Douglas’s character. The film
is padded out with solid supporting roles; Donald Sutherland is smarmy as ever
as the company owner, and reference comedian Dennis Miller is a witty treat as
a snarky techie, while Roma Maffia (you know her as anesthesiologist Liz Cruz
from Nip/Tuck) steals the show as the
spirited attorney defending Douglas against the charges. But the real treats come from watching
Douglas go from simmer to sizzle as the deck gets stacked against him, as his
professional and personal lives are destabilized by the machine forming to take
him down. Moore is a worthy adversary,
smug and overconfident in her sexuality, but it’s undeniably Michael Douglas’s show
as he proves once more that he’s not the guy to mess with.That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” We’ll see you here next week!
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