Indecent Proposal Blu-ray Review

It's not just the proposal that's indecent, it's the script, direction, and just about everything else...

By Ned Jordan

Indecent Proposal is a film built around a single question: would you, or would you want your wife to, sleep with a man for a million dollars? Unfortunately, the filmmakers didn't really know where to go from there and the result is a tedious film that's a trial to watch. We're introduced to David and Diana Murphy (Woody Harrelson and Demi Moore) and shown that they're a very passionate couple deeply in love with each other. When the economy of the early 1990s begins to sour, the highly leveraged Murphys are hit particularly hard and are faced with losing everything they've worked for. They come up a dubious plan to travel to Las Vegas to win the $50,000 they need to save their home, which goes about as well as is to be expected. But just when all appears to be lost, Diana attracts the attention of free-spending billionaire John Gage (Robert Redford) who makes an offer to the Murphys of one million dollars for one night with Diana.

Indecent Proposal's first mistake is that it gets its central conceit out of the way far too early in the story. David and Diana spend about five minutes discussing the proposal before deciding to prostitute Diana, which is hard to believe after the introduction we've had to the supposedly madly in love couple. It's also a major blunder in that the decision that should have been played out as a gut-wrenching, soul-searching ordeal that caused the audience to examine its own moral codes was so quickly spent, leaving little for the movie to go on for the next ninety plus minutes. After the business deal is transacted and the Murphys return home, their trust issues quickly push them apart and the rest of the film is a creepy shell of a romance in which Gage stalks Diana in what would be considered a disturbing manner to most people, except apparently for Diana who eventually melts into Gage's arms. You can probably guess how the whole thing ends since it's rather predictable, but the filmmakers weren't quite sure how to get there and contrived such a ridiculous ending that it will have you both rolling your eyes and seething with anger that you wasted your time watching such poorly made dreck.

This is the film's debut on Blu-ray and the picture and sound are good, but that's about it with this movie.  Outside of an audio commentary from the director Adrian Lyne there aren't any special features.  Perhaps they knew that no one would be interested.

Final Rating: