联邦调查局探员杰克(史泰龙)的同事被连续杀人犯所杀,当女友玛莉也遭此凶手杀害后,杰克陷入了崩溃。尤其当他得知凶手杀害玛莉,其实是冲着他来的,那种无法拯救自己所爱的遗憾和无奈,使这位昔日精明乾练、充满自信的硬汉被痛苦所驱使,他开始整日借酒浇愁。
玛莉死后,杰克天天泡在警察常聚会的酒吧里。 朋友查理(查尔斯·丹顿)建议他去怀俄明的一个戒酒中心接受治疗。这个由前空军战技中心改建的戒酒中心,位于怀俄明冰冻的荒原上,一片肃杀之气。创办者是一位退休警察“大夫”,助理人员有汉克和心理医师兼护士的珍妮。
一进中心,枪械就被没收;杰克和其他9位警察,要在这荒僻的怀俄明荒原上面对其他人和自己的心魔。一场暴风雪破坏了电力系统,道路受阻,锅炉损坏……。Herbert Vesely was one of the promises for a new German cinema already in the 50's, but after the 60's his star was already dimmed. He made a small number of films in the 70's and 80's, all non too good. This biography of Egon Schiele, one of the most important Austrian artists, is an example of the pretensions and emptiness of a Vesely-film of later date.
The life of Schiele is presented here as a puzzle| well, Vesely thinks that Schiele's life was a puzzle: the core of the story is centered around the famous 1912 pornography trial and using this as base the film shows fragments of past and future. The problem is that it never becomes a unity and that the order of scenes and sequences seems to be at random: a cut-and-paste job that could have had any other result. Indeed, after seeing it twice I am almost convinced of it that a unsatisfactory linear thought-out film was changed into the puzzle in the editing room. Egon Schiele was an enigmatic man, but not a total puzzle, and this film does not bring him any closer.
The films also fails in conveying the eroticism and meaning of the Schiele's paintings: the camera watches and glides over the models without any understanding of Schiele's intentions, we only see beautiful naked bodies. If interested in Schiele, you better buy a book with his works in stead.。