Tom Selleck plays a writer of bad, but apparently popular, romance novels who gets writer's block. He trawls the courts to try and see if some salacious cases come up he can use for inspiration. It is here that he sees a young Romanian woman charged with murder and becomes instantly infatuated with her to the point that he decides to claim they are lovers to give her an alibi to get out of prison. Bright idea.
The performance of the two leads is where this movie shines. Selleck plays the character he was meant to play to perfection without holding back. He's a physically dashing and has a lavish moustache but the truth is he's a pretty awkward and excessively formal guy who's actually not very good at dealing with women - your typical "nice guy."
Paulina Porizkova at many points plays an Eastern European woman to perfection - coldly arrogant, eternally unimpressed, and a very unsafe driver. That's probably because she actually was a person from behind the iron curtain - Czech. It's one of the few times Hollywood actually got an Eastern European to play the role of an Eastern European. We had to sit through pretend-comrade performances by Robin Williams (Moscow on the Hudson (1984)), Arnie (Red Heat (1988)), and dumb Swede (Rocky IV (1985)) but never did get the real deal. The authenticity makes a big difference.
Other than that the movie is very silly. Long story short, it's clearly meant to be a dramatic comedy or a romantic comedy - it's not supposed to be gross-out comedy/farce - yet it has dead pets, people vomiting, people getting shot in the butt, and clowns beating each other up.
Not only that, but the director seems to have interfered negatively with Porizkova's acting at times. Sometimes she plays a suave, confident Romanian in USA, but sometimes she tries to play fish-out-of-water foreigner in a strange land and it doesn't work.
Honourable Mentions: Lethal Weapon 2 (1989). At the end of the movie an employee of the embassy tries to use diplomatic immunity to get out of heinous crimes in Alibi. It doesn't work, but at least he's better off than the South African diplomat in Lethal Weapon 2.
The performance of the two leads is where this movie shines. Selleck plays the character he was meant to play to perfection without holding back. He's a physically dashing and has a lavish moustache but the truth is he's a pretty awkward and excessively formal guy who's actually not very good at dealing with women - your typical "nice guy."
Paulina Porizkova at many points plays an Eastern European woman to perfection - coldly arrogant, eternally unimpressed, and a very unsafe driver. That's probably because she actually was a person from behind the iron curtain - Czech. It's one of the few times Hollywood actually got an Eastern European to play the role of an Eastern European. We had to sit through pretend-comrade performances by Robin Williams (Moscow on the Hudson (1984)), Arnie (Red Heat (1988)), and dumb Swede (Rocky IV (1985)) but never did get the real deal. The authenticity makes a big difference.
Other than that the movie is very silly. Long story short, it's clearly meant to be a dramatic comedy or a romantic comedy - it's not supposed to be gross-out comedy/farce - yet it has dead pets, people vomiting, people getting shot in the butt, and clowns beating each other up.
Not only that, but the director seems to have interfered negatively with Porizkova's acting at times. Sometimes she plays a suave, confident Romanian in USA, but sometimes she tries to play fish-out-of-water foreigner in a strange land and it doesn't work.
Honourable Mentions: Lethal Weapon 2 (1989). At the end of the movie an employee of the embassy tries to use diplomatic immunity to get out of heinous crimes in Alibi. It doesn't work, but at least he's better off than the South African diplomat in Lethal Weapon 2.