Revenge

Recently retired fighter pilot Cochran (Costner) enjoys an idyllic break at the Mexican ranch of old friend and tennis partner Tibey Mendez (Quinn). Despite a sense of loyalty and hints of Tibey's ruthlessness, Cochran becomes involved in a passionate affair with his beautiful wife Miryea (Stowe). When their treachery is discovered, Tibey's revenge is cold, calculated and vicious; but Cochran survives to even the score...Scott manages the shift from tremulous romance to violent retribution very well, but his efficient handling of some surprisingly tough action scenes is compromised by a surfeit of pop promo clichés: billowing net curtains, clouds of fluttering doves, an excessive use of coloured filters. What emotional intensity there is therefore derives from the two central performances. Always comfortable as a romantic lead, Costner here displays a more menacing side, his obsession laced with a dangerously uncontrolled violence; and his conviction is matched by Quinn's formidable portrayal of the autocratic Mendez. With more dramatic depth and less visual flash, this might have captured some of the poetic fatalism of Jim Harrison's original novella.