Stars: Brian Dennehy, James Woods, Victoria Tennant, Jenny Gago

Director: John Flynn

Summary: Thriller story of a cop/author who survives a violent robbery and notices that one of his attackers has steely blue eyes and burns on his hands. Several years later his life is saved by a man who wants a book to be written about him. This man has steely blue eyes...

Dennis Meechum (Brian Dennehy) is a cop who has supplemented his meager policeman's salary by writing a succession of lurid crime novels, including one based on an episode from his own life. But his imagination fails him after his wife's tragic, premature death from cancer. Lonely, burned-out, and unable to write, Meechum is shaken from his doldrums by his "chance" meeting with a former hit man named Cleve (James Woods). Cleve drags the writer around the country presenting him with details and evidence of an outlandish national murder spree orchestrated by a wealthy man considered to be a pillar of Los Angeles society. It is Meechum's job to put it all down in a book and make his informer the hero of the expose, but he soon realizes that he and the mysterious Cleve share a past--and, worse yet, that the hit man has by no means given up his murderous ways. A crackling suspense thriller with a plot like a Pachinko machine.

WIN DVDs by rating this DVD

Average User Rating:

WIN DVDS by being amongst the first to review this DVD. Reviewing DVDs earns you bonus entries and lets you WIN DVDs!Please login before reviewing this DVD. If you're a new user, register for free and enter to WIN FREE DVDs!

John Flynn has directed some good, tough, pacy thrillers and Best Seller, along with the 1973 The Outfit, can claim to be the best of them. It kicks off with not one but two slam-bang action sequences and then, having grabbed our attention, pitches us straight into its twisty plot premise. Brian Dennehy, reliably watchable as ever, plays an ageing cop-turned-novelist who has hit a writer's block since his wife died. James Woods at his most suavely sinister is a hitman with dirt to dish on the head of a big corporation. Woods proposes a Faustian pact. He provides Dennehy with the full crooked story on the mobster-turned-corporate boss and the cop writes it up. Dennehy gets a best seller; Woods gets his revenge and comes out looking like a hero.

The dialogue, courtesy of screenwriter and horror-movie director Larry Cohen (It's Alive; Q--The Winged Serpent), is satisfyingly hard-boiled and slips in plenty of subversive sideswipes at rampant capitalism. ("It's the American Way, Dennis," says Woods, detailing how he helped his boss rise via robbery and murder. "I'm a businessman, an executive.") This certainly isn't the only movie to get mileage out of the symbiotic relationship between cop and crook (see Michael Mann's Heat), but it works several neat variations on the theme, with Dennehy and Woods both at the top of their respective forms. If the film never quite lives up to its potential--the required final confrontation between the two principals doesn't materialise and Victoria Tennant is thrown away as Dennehy's love-interest--it remains a way better than average thriller with its roots deep in the best B-movie traditions.

On the DVD:Best Selleron disc has no extras apart from the theatrical trailer. The transfer is good and clean, and preserves the original's full-width framing. --Philip Kemp

Aspect Ratio:	1.85 Wide Screen, 16:9 Wide Screen
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Original Theatrical Trailer, Interactive Menu, Chapter Selection
Subtitles:	Dutch, French, Greek, Italian, Polish, Spanish
Year:	1987
Release Date:	September 16, 2002
Runtime:	91 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	16490 D V D
Keywords:	Seller, General, Best, Drama
Genre:	Drama