Retro Review: TWILIGHT (1998)- The Last Case Of A Tired Man

Cinema Scholars goes back to the ’90s with a retro review of Paul Newman’s Twilight (1998). The neo noir features a star-studded cast including Susan Sarandon, Gene Hackman, James Garner, Reese Witherspoon, M. Emmet Walsh, Stockard Channing, Liev Schreiber, Giancarlo Esposito, and many more notables. 

Introduction

One of the last films Paul Newman made was Twilight. No, not that Twilight, but a smart, well-made neo-noir from 1998 that feels like a late-career echo of his earlier detective work. Watching it, I kept thinking of Harper and The Drowning Pool, where Newman took on Ross Macdonald’s Lew Archer. This almost plays like a third entry in that unofficial trilogy. Almost.

Here, Newman plays Harry Ross, a worn-down private investigator sent to Mexico to retrieve the underage daughter of an old actor friend, played by Reese Witherspoon. She’s involved with an older boyfriend, played by Liev Schreiber, and as expected, things go sideways. Ross gets shot, the girl is brought home, and the boyfriend ends up in prison. It’s a messy beginning that sets the tone for everything that follows.

Ross, disillusioned and clearly running on fumes, ends up living in the guesthouse of that same actor and his wife, played beautifully by Gene Hackman and Susan Sarandon. Hackman’s character is dying of cancer and asks Ross to deliver hush money tied to a long-buried murder. Ross agrees, reluctantly, but of course, he can’t help himself. He starts digging.

Discussion

I enjoyed this film quite a bit. Newman is still magnetic this late in his career, and the supporting cast is stacked. Alongside Hackman, Sarandon, Witherspoon, and Schreiber, you’ve got James Garner and Stockard Channing, plus a host of familiar faces. Director Robert Benton co-wrote the film with Richard Russo, reuniting with Newman after Nobody’s Fool, and that collaboration still works.

Harry Ross is classic noir material. A former cop turned PI, a recovering alcoholic, a man who never quite left the job behind. His past connections linger, especially in the form of Channing’s Verna, a tough cop with real affection for him, and Garner’s Ray, an old partner tied to the very case Ross is unraveling. That case centers on Sarandon’s Catherine, whose first husband was murdered before she married Hackman’s Ames. Naturally, suspicion hangs thick in the air.

I love a good whodunit, and this is a solid one. It leans into all the noir hallmarks: moral gray areas, damaged people, buried secrets, and a world where almost everyone is guilty of something. Ross himself is tired, vulnerable, and not particularly heroic. He doesn’t want to be the guy chasing the truth anymore, but it’s the only thing he knows how to do.

Further Analysis

The film’s Los Angeles setting feels pulled straight out of Raymond Chandler’s world, like something Philip Marlowe might wander through. It’s a place where everyone knows each other, or at least thinks they do, and trust is in short supply. The dialogue reflects that. It’s intimate, sometimes cutting, often laced with quiet resentment. Even casual conversations feel loaded.

Visually, Benton and cinematographer Piotr Sobociński keep things grounded and tight. There’s a lot of time spent in confined spaces, cars, apartments, dimly lit rooms, and it all feels lived-in. There’s not much action here, and that’s by design. This is an older cast, and the film leans on dialogue, tension, and the occasional burst of violence rather than spectacle. It works.

If there’s a downside, it’s that the ending wraps things up a bit too neatly for my taste. I would have preferred a little more ambiguity, something messier, something that lingered. As Ross and Verna walk out of the Hollywood division office, I half expected someone like Harry Bosch to wander into frame.

Conclusion

Still, this is a strong film. It shows that Newman and this cast could absolutely still carry a feature, and it proves that noir was alive and well in the late ’90s. I’ve always loved Paul Newman, and somehow this one slipped past me until now. I’m glad I finally caught up with it. Now I just need to see it on a big screen.

Read more Cinema Scholars retro reviews!

INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM (1984): A Retro Review

NOBODY’S FOOL (1994); A 30th Anniversary Retro Review

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