Al Pacino in a cop role – what can go wrong? It seldom has and it doesn’t in the cleverly titled Sea of Love.
Harold Becker’s thriller from 1989 is a sexy romance tucked into a police hunt for a serial killer. The movie has terrific lead performances by Pacino and Ellen Barkin.
Three men have been murdered in New York City. At the home of one of the victims, a record is playing the old hit Sea of Love.
All the men have responded to rhyming classified advertisements in newspapers. Might a woman be the perpetrator? New York police detective Frank (Pacino) comes up with a plan: to place similarly worded ads and meet all the women who respond.
Together with his partner Sherman (John Goodman), Frank goes on a series of dates, one of which is the alluring and possibly dangerous Helen (Barkin). Tasked with gathering evidence from Helen, Frank instead rushed headlong into an all-advised affair.
Sea of Love, which can be rented from Prime Video, might have been a routine murder mystery if it wasn’t for the texture created by Harold Becker and writer Richard Price. The scenes revolving around the police officers have an improvisational quality, with John Goodman superb as the jolly cop ready to break into song. Pacino’s chemistry with Barkin burns up the screen, just as his ease with his co-actors gives the film an easy-going, live-in feel.
The moody scenes of night-time New York elevate the suspense. The dialogue feels real, as do Frank and Helen, a match made in heaven but possibly in hell too.
