I had grown disappointed with Brian DePalma throughout the 1990s and 2000s. The man who gave us "Phantom of the Paradise", "Carrie", "Dressed to Kill", "Scarface" and "Carlito's Way"* suddenly turned to overblown stuff like "Mission: Impossible", "Snake Eyes" and "The Black Dahlia". So it's a little bit of a treat to see "Passion". It's not as good as his early work, but the tension between the main characters is definitely what I hope for in one of his movies. In fact, DePalma tricks the audience by getting them to think that it's a clash-of-egos story...before the real plot line sets in. Far from her perky roles in previous movies, Rachel McAdams plays a scary executive. The viewer practically wishes for Noomi Rapace's character to do something nasty.

Basically, "Passion" has a hint of what usually made DePalma's movies good. It's probably not going to be for everyone, but I liked it.

*For the record, I didn't think that "Bonfire of the Vanities" was that bad.

This German set remake of a French erotic thriller, lacks little of Brian De Palmas's visual flourishes apart from one ballet set scene.

Christine (Rachel Adams) is an advertising executive in the fashion world in Germany who is angling for a big promotion at her firm's New York office. She has taken credit of her assistant's ideas, Isabelle (Noomi Rapace) and the promotion is all but guaranteed. However this is now in jeopardy when Isabelle impresses her bosses with a social media campaign that goes viral.

So mutual jealousy at work spills over to their personal lives. Isabelle is having an affair with Christine's lover Dirk (Paul Anderson.) Dirk is also siphoning money from the advertising company which Christine has been covering up for.

None of the characters are likable, eve Christine has casual affairs. Once her promotion is at risk, she humiliates Isabelle at every turn and when Christine is found dead, Isabelle being a prime suspect.

De Palma is a long way from his glory days of The Untouchables or Carlito's Way. He is hampered by a modest budget and a script that he co-wrote. Too many times he has to fall back on dream sequences and just characters doing stupid or nasty things. For example what was that about Isabelle crashing her car into the car park columns? When Isabelle was given evidence of Dirk pilfering the company, she had enough to finish Christine off for good.

The film has a lesbian subtext which is weak but works better with another character but it still comes across as misguided.

PASSION is another disappointing effort from Brian De Palma, once again awash with his directorial flourishes - split screen, imposing Pino Donnagio score, Hitchcockian tone - but failing as a proper thriller of note. This one's essentially a two-hander involving Noomi Rapace and Rachel McAdams, friends and colleagues in the advertising industry who end up falling out over their career progress. What follows is overwrought and exceptionally cheesy, not aided by leaden performances from both actresses. De Palma remade this from a European film and he really shouldn't have bothered, because the end result is insufficient as a proper movie. It feels weak and wishy-washy, impossible to take seriously in and of itself.