Dead Again (1991)

The past has a way of catching up with us, sometimes in ways no one could possibly imagine. Kenneth Branagh followed his acclaimed adaptation of Shakespeare's "Henry V" with a sharp change of pace in "Dead Again," a slick, stylish thriller that calls to mind Hitchcock, classic film noir and old-fashioned gothic chillers. Adopting a broad American accent, Branagh stars as Mike Church, a tough but tenderhearted Los Angeles private eye who takes on the case of a mysterious woman who has lost her memory (Emma Thompson, Branagh's wife at the time). With help from an eccentric antiques dealer and part-time hypnotist (Derek Jacobi), "Grace," as Mike calls her, begins unlocking buried memories. What they don't expect is that her recollections come from a past life in 1940s Los Angeles. As she recounts the story of a glamorous marriage between a celebrated composer and his wife that ended in a notorious murder - shown in black-and-white flashbacks also starring Branagh and Thompson - events in the present begin to mirror the past, as if fate were steering the two toward a deadly rerun of history. Andy Garcia co-stars, and Robin Williams turns up in a memorable, uncredited role as a disgraced psychiatrist. Branagh's flashy direction nods to a host of 1940s and '50s classics, especially Hitchcock's "Rebecca" and "Spellbound," and keeps the story racing along with a nervous urgency that helps smooth over some of the plot's sillier moments. It may not hold up to close logical scrutiny, but in the shadowy world of classic Hollywood, it's a dazzling slice of old-fashioned entertainment with a modern twist.