Hitchcock to the left : Holding all the AcesĪs a thriller, it has a simplicity of plot that is near-irresistible: A beloved uncle with a dark secret (Joseph Cotten) visits his family in a small northern California town. You can keep your Psycho, Vertigo, and Rear Window - classics all- but for me, there isn't a Hitchcock film that compares with Shadow of a Doubt. I don't regret having seen it, but there isn't exactly anything to recommend here.Decades before David Lynch turned his twisted lens on small-town perversity in the masterfully weird Blue Velvet, Alfred Hitchcock had already taken what I consider to be the definitive look at the pernicious effect of evil on small town life in Shadow of a Doubt. And the film is entertaining, albeit in an extremely lowbrow sort of way. It's hard to say if her performance is uneven, or it's just the character. So what's good about this film? Fairuza Balk is interesting. In effect, he invites everyone to overact as much as they care to. He lets everyone wink at the audience and make cute little sideways comments to the camera. In fact, he has next to no ability to rein in his actors.

Speaking of Brian Dennehy (who I like very much as an actor), he is not a good director.

Not that I have anything against the AA, but it just smacks of recent conversion fervor. At one point, his character references his time being sober as being virtually the exact same as Dennehy himself. The origin of this is embarrassingly close to the life of director/star Brian Dennehy. Then there's the shameless Alcoholics Anonymous propaganda. One of the lowest scenes is a retread of the old 'death as an aphrodisiac' cliché. Scene after scene is right out of the cheapest, lowest quality pulp fiction. The judge's lines are inappropriate and unrealistic.

The script of 'Shadow of a Doubt' is bad.

A shadow of a doubt 90s movie