He's smart in the way that many audience members are smart (or think that they're smart). He's the first noir patsy who might've been to therapy. Ned could have been a contemporary screenwriter who resettled in Florida after a failed attempt at a Hollywood career, wandered into Matty's orbit, and thought, "I've seen this movie before." It's Hurt's peculiar energy, smug yet aware of its smugness, that gives "Body Heat" its unique tension. His slowed-down eloquence and self-satisfied vibe are more color than black-and-white. The only casting link to the then-present moment is Hurt, and its Hurt who holds the film together and makes Kasdan's old-but-new gambit work. Turner is the perfect actress for Matty-so perfect that she'd essentially reprise the character's voice seven years later for Robert Zemeckis' half-animated noir spoof " Who Framed Roger Rabbit"-and everyone else is spot-on as well, so much so that you could almost imagine them rising fully-formed from the imagination of a pulp writer old enough to have been Kasdan's grandfather. Hurt’s nascent stardom (which kicked off the preceding summer with " Altered States") was cemented by this movie, which also elevated Turner (in her first leading role), Ted Danson (as Ned’s nerdy, chatterbox best friend, just a year away from starring in TV's "Cheers"), and a smoldering young whisperer named Mickey Rourke, who has just two scenes as an arsonist but tucks the film into his back pocket like a stolen pack of cigarettes. Written and directed by Lawrence Kasdan, a wunderkind fresh off co-writing " The Empire Strikes Back" for George Lucas, and shot and cut by the husband-wife team of cinematographer John Bailey and editor Carol Littleton, "Body Heat" is a self-aware continuation of a grand tradition that brings 1940s tropes into the ’80s, pushing hard-boiled attitude to the brink of parody.
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