The Night and the Moment

REVIEW
A third-rate Dangerous Liaisons, The Night and the Moment casts Dafoe as a fop trying to bed a willful Olin by relating past sexual conquests and other stories. This dull, lifeless trash aims for Tom Jones-like sophisticated ribaldry, but ends up only as an episodic mishmash. Dafoe seems more desperate and disturbed than calculatedly malicious, and Olin is a letdown. The immensely talented Ennio Morricone here contributes a horribly annoying, distracting score that complements the leads' cruel misdeeds with a jocular harpsichord and horn rift, which brings about a deeper contempt for the characters without the ironic detachment of Liaisons. Though several of Dafoe's anecdotes are of mild interest (a detailed description of the usage of an outmoded torture device has a macabre charm), these scenes are separated by long-winded, would-be witty word play, and lackluster story telling.