Simply Perfect

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

John Phillips (Prior) is just a simple acting teacher. When he is mistaken for a hired killer by some bad guys, a conspiracy begins to unfold. It seems there are a group of people planning to assassinate the Governor of Alabama (we were able to piece that together because this AIP production, like Raw Nerve (1991), was shot in Alabama, and the local paper, the "City Press" announced there was going to be a "Governor's Convention" on its front page). Phillips is confused, and even more so when Justice Department agent Richard Morgan (Davi) wants him to continue playing the part of "John Logan" so he can ensnare the rest of the nefarious organization and prevent the assassination.Add to that Phillips' lawyer/girlfriend Katherine (Tilton) who is trying to help him but gets swept up in the confusion, especially when Alessandro (Hopkins) is poking around wanting answers. And where do Stephen Moore's (Curtis) true loyalties lie?Needless to say, there are many, many twists and turns and you don't know who is double-crossing who. Sure, a lot of it doesn't make much sense but who is really monitoring this very closely?It appears that Center of the Web was one of AIP's attempts at striving for better. They were obviously trying to move away from junkiness and do something a little classier. For the most part, we would say they were successful, if the goal was something less silly. But is that what people really want? The weirdest thing about this AIP film was its pacing. It seemed weird and offbeat, perhaps not on purpose. Hard to say. But all the usual suspects (the Prior family and the Winters family) in the making of the film, seemed to look to Hitchcock for inspiration, The Wrong Man (1956) and Topaz (1969) in particular. I'm sure you could imagine "AIP Does Hitchcock", and here it is.Tony Curtis is here for some reason and the main thrust of his character is he compares people to pigeons and always wears black gloves and a huge belt buckle. The large-faced Prior as the main character, John Phillips (it always seems like the other characters in the movie leave out the word "Sousa" when referring to him) never misses a chance to go shirtless. Groan. The standout actor/performance has to go Robert Davi. He's usually great and he rises above the rest here. Interestingly, Charles Napier is top-billed but has about a five second cameo. Whoopi Goldberg got more screen time in Beverly Hills Brats (1989). The movie could have used more Napier. But AIP must have figured they would fill the cast with names and semi-names, and THEN realized they couldn't fit them all in the movie. Would you want to see a three-hour Center of the Web? I didn't think so. So Napier had to be left on the cutting room floor, apparently.The stand-out scene in the film is the one and only action/stunt sequence. We won't spoil it, you'll know it when you see it. It's actually very impressive. For a more "mature" AIP experience, try Center of the Web.For more insanity, please visit: comeuppancereviews.com

Several of the plot-twists fail because they make a nonsense of earlier parts. It is as if the writer added twists as he thought of them without actually looking back.Charlene Tilton was not sexy enough for her role - except the brief glimpse of a nipple in that soft focus love scene !*****Spoiler alert******If John was a government agent all along, and they planned that he take the assassin's place, how did they ensure that the hoods came along when Kathryn was inside ? How did the get Kathryn to forget her bag ?Who were in the second car shooting at John and the hoods ?Why empty John's house of furniture - there must be easier ways of appearing serious to Kathryn than that ?Why kill the other two cops in the warehouse ?Why did Stephen's man assist John's escape after the shooting. (Perhaps he was really working for Morgan - but that wasn't explained.)Why was Kathryn's father killed - so that Kathryn had a motive to arrange for Wilson's murder ? That's pretty tenuous !******Tony Curtis's acting was pretty atrocious. As a cold-hearted killer, why did his face twist in a look of hatred when he actually was about to shoot ?

This was a great story line. The one major flaw was that Tony Curtis was identifiable too early in the film. Someone less known or less easily identified would have helped the suspense. Overall the acting was weak. The main character was supposed to be an acting teacher. One of his lines was "If I was a good actor, I wouldn't be teaching acting." That was definitely a self-fulfilling statement. Neither cast nor effects did the story-line justice.