Could have been so much more, given the supporting cast and Elmore Leonard's script, but it's a flat beer of a movie. Maybe Ferrara got homesick, but the pacing and editing is unusually lethargic, so perhaps impending bankruptcy was driving the whole production into the throes of despair. The performances are so underwhelming as to be invisible. Weller is a B-movie actor. Robocop is still his finest hour. McGillis looks fairly lantern-jawed and mannish throughout. Was Ferrara taking the mickey by shooting her profile so often?. Tree-like in every scene, could anyone seriously find her charms so irresistible?

The bogus history lessons and lightweight back story are dull as ditchwater. And the mushy love scenes between the two leads just don't cut it. A clunker for completists. Catch it on afternoon TV if you're paralysed from the neck up.

Hard to believe that Ferrara had anything at all to do with this movie.

Of all the Leonard stories put to film, this to me is the best. The voice-over along with the visuals carry the book's feel, both plot and dialogue. Peter Weller has a subtleness that breaks through his seeming deadpan, and Charles Durning couldn't be better at ambiguity. Kelly McGillis is more than a pretty and sexy figure. All the characters are mixtures of good and not so good, and as typical Leonard characters they work out the balances of their desires.

The direction is great. It keeps you moving, wondering, and figuring out the mystery. The story has several components that mix well as they are revealed. And there is the basis of reality to this film. It helps to recall the invasion of the Dominican Republic and the practices of torture attributed to the head of police at the time.

One of this films wonderful attributes is the score by jazz pianist/composer Chick Corea. It surprises me that no one has mentioned it.

And lastly, let me say that the film is exciting. Viewing after viewing it holds up well.

Yeah, I know it's a flawed film, I mean, I caught it one night, LATE at night, on cable TV when I was a kid. HBO to be specific and at an hour reserved for only failed and low quality films.

In other words, I found it at a place where movies go to die. The equivalent of the bargain box at a toy store.

But, I liked it. It wasn't the usual thriller and that's saying a lot given that thrillers, like action movies, all have relatively the same plot. They tend to be like the Harley Davidson store crowd as in they all dress the same and claim they are rebels.

Cat Chaser was something different. The plot stood out. Peter Weller did as best a job he could. The cast did as best a job as they could.

It was just, the director didn't really know what to do with the script, which was, I learned, (thank you IMDB) based on an Elmore Leonard novel...and that sort of says it all.

The writer, Elmore Leonard, isn't exactly a literary great. He has an irritating vernacular. BUT, he also has a talent for creating unique characters and unique settings and situations and stringing them all together into a coherent plot.

Leonard is a pulp writer, but he was a pulp writer that was original in his approach to just about everything and his stories are a pleasure to read.

And, when, like this one, they are adapted to the big screen, that uniqueness carries over. Even in a bad film, as this one was--albeit a bad film with good acting--it becomes a story that you haven't really encountered before and you won't encounter again.

So give it a watch, it's Elmore Leonard, you aren't seeing a great film, but you are going to see a story you haven't encountered before, and to me, that alone is worth 10 out of 10 stars.

Don't rate it on it's cinematic prowess, watch it for the plot, it's new, it's original, and, even if its badly done, we need a lot more of that, especially now, when almost everything we see is exactly like almost everything else we are seeing.