***SPOILERS*** Despite its very uneven storyline "Exit in Red" is one of the best film noir movies to come out of Hollywood since "Chinatown" back in 1974.
Facing disbarment for having an affair with a woman client of his back in New York City psychiatrist Ed Altman, Mickey Rourke, ends up doing the exact same thing when he moves out west to reopen his practice in sunny Palm Springs Calif. Getting right back from where he left off Ed in no time at all develops a romantic relationship with his very first client the leggy and smoldering Ally Mercer, Annabel Schofield.
Things turn, to say the least, a bit sour for Ed when Ally's husband Nick, Anthony Michael Hall, shows up at his office seeking his help. Nick tells Ed that Ally is having an affair with another man and that's causing him to not be able to preform his duties as a husband with her in bed! Of course Ed being no one's, but is own, fool can see that he's the other man in this three way affair! Ed soon decides to play it cool in trying to keep Nick from finding out that he's in fact the one causing him all these material dysfunctions.
It later turns out that Nick is fully on to Ed's and his wife's cheating behind his back when he shows up at Ed's office with a very reluctant Ally in hand! Thinking at first that he's being blackmailed by the two Ed is later told by his lawyer, handling his disbarment case, Kate Harris, Carre Otis, that Ally & Nick are snookering him in some kind of elaborate shake-down attempt that has nothing really to do with money.
**SPOILER ALERT FROM POINT ON*** Still not quite getting it, in what Ally and Nick have planned for him, Ed gets set up in a murder that he ends up being framed for. The murder happens to be of his lover Ally's husband Nick. The biggest surprise in all this, which Ed finds out at the local police station, is that Ally's at first unidentifiable murdered husband, who had his face blown off, happens not to be Nick!
Ending up holding the bag in a murder that he didn't commit Ed ends up a confused and wanted man on the run from the law. Ed's only way of evening things up is for him to track down the two double-crossing creeps who set him up Ally and her boyfriend Nick and make them pay for what they both did to him: Destroyed his both professional and personal life with him now facing life behind bars or a one way trip to the San Quentin death chamber.
The way Ed goes about in getting Ally and Nick to pay for what they did to him shows that he himself is in need of immediate psychiatric help! The guy gets himself deeper and deeper into trouble, which Kate warned him against, with the law then he already is. The ending, like in most film noir movies, is about as depressing as you would expect it to be.
Ed gets his revenge all right but instead of clearing his name he ends up with a number of other major criminal charges on his rap sheet that in effect clears both Ally and Nick of the murder that they pinned on him!
Facing disbarment for having an affair with a woman client of his back in New York City psychiatrist Ed Altman, Mickey Rourke, ends up doing the exact same thing when he moves out west to reopen his practice in sunny Palm Springs Calif. Getting right back from where he left off Ed in no time at all develops a romantic relationship with his very first client the leggy and smoldering Ally Mercer, Annabel Schofield.
Things turn, to say the least, a bit sour for Ed when Ally's husband Nick, Anthony Michael Hall, shows up at his office seeking his help. Nick tells Ed that Ally is having an affair with another man and that's causing him to not be able to preform his duties as a husband with her in bed! Of course Ed being no one's, but is own, fool can see that he's the other man in this three way affair! Ed soon decides to play it cool in trying to keep Nick from finding out that he's in fact the one causing him all these material dysfunctions.
It later turns out that Nick is fully on to Ed's and his wife's cheating behind his back when he shows up at Ed's office with a very reluctant Ally in hand! Thinking at first that he's being blackmailed by the two Ed is later told by his lawyer, handling his disbarment case, Kate Harris, Carre Otis, that Ally & Nick are snookering him in some kind of elaborate shake-down attempt that has nothing really to do with money.
**SPOILER ALERT FROM POINT ON*** Still not quite getting it, in what Ally and Nick have planned for him, Ed gets set up in a murder that he ends up being framed for. The murder happens to be of his lover Ally's husband Nick. The biggest surprise in all this, which Ed finds out at the local police station, is that Ally's at first unidentifiable murdered husband, who had his face blown off, happens not to be Nick!
Ending up holding the bag in a murder that he didn't commit Ed ends up a confused and wanted man on the run from the law. Ed's only way of evening things up is for him to track down the two double-crossing creeps who set him up Ally and her boyfriend Nick and make them pay for what they both did to him: Destroyed his both professional and personal life with him now facing life behind bars or a one way trip to the San Quentin death chamber.
The way Ed goes about in getting Ally and Nick to pay for what they did to him shows that he himself is in need of immediate psychiatric help! The guy gets himself deeper and deeper into trouble, which Kate warned him against, with the law then he already is. The ending, like in most film noir movies, is about as depressing as you would expect it to be.
Ed gets his revenge all right but instead of clearing his name he ends up with a number of other major criminal charges on his rap sheet that in effect clears both Ally and Nick of the murder that they pinned on him!
