James Milstead’s review published on Letterboxd:
BAD INFLUENCE (18)
D: Curtis Hanson
Epic (Steve Tisch)
USA 🇺🇸 1990
99 mins
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Thriller
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W: David Koepp
DP: Robert Elswit
Ed: Bonnie Koehler
Mus: Trevor Jones
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Rob Lowe (Alex), James Spader (Michael), Lisa Zane (Claire), Christian Clemenson (Pismo), Kathleen Wilhoite (Leslie), Tony Maggio (Patterson), Marcia Cross (Ruth)
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Rob Lowe is perfectly cast in this thriller, supposedly because of his bad boy reputation around the time it was made. He plays the mysterious and shady new friend of a timid office worker (Spader), who is manipulated into undertaking a different lifestyle and adopting unsavoury mannerisms.
It has enough suspense to maintain it's running time but some might say it's 'Fatal Attraction with a couple of guys', I think it's a little better than that and the sort of thing Hitchcock would make, albeit with a little more ambiguity between the relationship of the two men.
6/10