NekoHomey Purely Joyful Movie!

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Portia Hilton Blistering performances.

Rosie Searle It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Peter Zullmmann This is one of those movies that fell though the cracks. I couldn't find it ever on a big screen, retrospectives you know. I refused to see it on TV for the first time. Sunday night, finally, I saw it in a huge plasma screen. Wow! I can immediately tell why people consider it a remake of Double Indemnity but unlike Gus Van Sant who remade Psycho shot by shot and casts Vince Vaugh as Norman Bates in a massive piece of miscalculation, or Jonathan Demme who remade Charade as The Trouble With Charlie and casts Mark Whalberg in the Cary Grant role, Mark Whalberg! In "Body Heat" Lawrence Kasdan casts William Hurt in the Fred Mac Murray part of the insurance salesman falling into the trap, body and soul. William Hurt's phenomenal performance reinventing the character makes "Body Heat" unique and without precedent. The power of Kathleen Turner - bursting into the film scene with a bang! - it's a masterpiece of characterization. She's way ahead of William Hurt. "You're not very intelligent, are you? I like that in a man" Superb.

KineticSeoul When it comes to these femme fatale type of movies, the formula has become very familiar now. However when this film first came out, it was pretty cleverly executed. I think this is one of the films that inspired the creation of other seductive woman type characters in films that know what they want and know how to play the game. The the story takes place during the summer in Florida when it's going through a heatwave. A woman temps a lawyer with her sexiness and manipulates him to kill her rich husband. So they can take off with his money by legally taking it all by using the legal system. From there are the choices the characters make really start to bite them in the butt. While you as an audience is trying to figure out exactly what is going on and what the main plan that is being utilized is. This is a film for adults and I don't mean that because of the sexual content. But because this is a slow burn movie that will bore most teenagers. Overall, I have seen these types of movies before so the ending was quite predictable for me. But I appreciate it for what it accomplished and brought forth at that time. Plus another femme fatale film came out a year later called "Basic Instinct". Which will be a bigger hit because of Sharon Stone and because of a certain scene with her in it.7.6/10

SnoopyStyle Ned Racine (William Hurt) is a small seedy lawyer in Florida. It's a searing heatwave. He picks up Matty Walker (Kathleen Turner). She's married to wealthy businessman Edmund (Richard Crenna), and a passionate affair ensues. She wants to leave Edmund but there's a prenup. So they hatch a plot to kill him.The is one sweaty movie. It is one of the best modern noir. It has all the styles of noir from first time director Lawrence Kasdan who also wrote the screenplay. It takes all the components of the old noir genre and adds the explicit sexuality of newcomer Kathleen Turner. It is very effective. It pushes the genre to new heights.

mrb1980 Most of the attention for "Body Heat" in 1981 was understandably directed toward Kathleen Turner's spectacular debut as the manipulating and conniving Matty Walker. However, the entire main cast (J. A. Preston, William Hurt, Kim Zimmer, Richard Crenna, Mickey Rourke and Ted Danson) are just as good.The plot is a remake of the old "Double Indemnity" plot from 1944 with a few added twists. Matty Walker meets incompetent Florida attorney Ned Racine (Hurt) and convinces him to kill her wealthy, ruthless husband Edmund (Richard Crenna). Arsonist Teddy Lewis (Rourke) provides an incendiary device to Racine in order to destroy evidence after the murder. Assistant District Attorney Peter Lowenstein (Danson) and detective Oscar Grace (Preston) investigate Edmund Walker's murder and find that an unidentified party (Matty Walker) is providing evidence to implicate Racine in the killing. In the final part of the movie, Matty Walker appears to have been killed in an explosion, but Racine eventually discovers that she has switched identities with and killed old friend Mary Ann Simpson (Zimmer) and has disappeared with the Walker estate money to an unidentified tropic island. Yes, it was really Simpson's body left behind, and Walker gets away with it! Yes, Turner was luminous and breathtaking in her first theatrical movie. Her sensuous manner with underlying evil undertones really makes this film click. The other actors do fine jobs, too. Hurt could have overplayed his dumb attorney role, but is just perfect; Crenna plays a really unlikeable shady businessman; Preston is an idealistic police detective; Rourke is enjoyably slimy as a professional criminal; and Danson provides spark as a public attorney who is friends with Racine and tries to help him, even when the evidence begins to mount.This film has a wonderfully "natural" feel, in which everyone is sweating and miserable during a steamy Florida heat wave. The characters talk like normal people do, wear normal clothes, and have the weaknesses that we all have. The music score, especially during the closing credits, is top-notch. It's a very realistic movie, and I'm still as impressed as I was 32 years ago when I saw it in a theater. It's timeless, and it's still a wonderful film.