I really enjoy going back in time and watching today's stars, particularly the talented ones, at the outset of their careers. Alec Baldwin and Jennifer Jason Leigh were in top form in this taut, engaging thriller.

Never a spoiler, I will strive to offer the broadest description of the film: Alec is a real baddie, who has a prison history and revels in hurting people. Of course, he steals to live and has no conscience at all. He meets Jennifer, who plays a dingbat college student dabbling in prostitution. She's gullible, caring, charming...and with her exquisite deep south accent, wins our hearts.

OK, the scene is set.

Now consider the actors. Alec has been a bad dude in so many films....remember him in The Cooler? Recall how he broke his best friend's leg without breaking a sweat? Then he was evil incarnated in The Juror. Creepy how he bullied Demi Moore! He does comedy, of course, but I've always thought he was better as a badass.

Jennifer Jason Leigh proved her true worth in her best work, The Vicious Circle. When she played Dorothy Parker at the Algonquin, mingling with other intellectuals, she was fantastic. She was awesome too in The Machinist, Road to Perdition, and The Hudsucker Proxy. Oh, have I forgotten her masterpiece, Single White Female? What a crazy roommate she was!

Wanna have fun? Go back and watch this thriller made in 1990. Check out how dashing the young actors were. Try to ignore the role Fred Ward plays: the writers never quite got his detective thing right.