she was the femme in " la femme nikita . " 
he was the baldwin in " backdraft , " " sliver , " and " fair game " ( with cindy crawford ) . 
together , anne parillaud and william baldwin conspire to make " shattered image " the biggest piece of hooey since the stallone/stone " thriller " " the specialist . " 
the film poses the question " what if the life you're living now is really a dream , and your dreams reality ? " 
it's either about a woman who's haunted by a recurring ( and recurring and recurring ) nightmare that she's a hired assassin , or it's about a hired assassin who's haunted by a recurring ( and recurring and recurring ) nightmare that she's honeymooning with william baldwin in jamaica . 
it doesn't much matter and believe me by the time " shattered image " runs its painful and pedestrian course you won't care . 
these two lives , with parillaud looking like siouxsie sioux with a black wig , black emotionless eyes , and black leather clothing in the seattle-based assassin scenes , and moping around like karen carpenter in the jamaica scenes , play out endlessly throughout the film and the result is it's now * twice * as boring as it might have been . 
it's not that complicated plots can't be entertaining . 
of course it helps if you have interesting characters , crisp dialogue , and a modicum of style . 
 " shattered image " isn't complex , it's just stupid . 
and boring . 
parillaud and baldwin , who aren't exactly shakespearean material to begin with , are saddled with such leaden dialogue that their characters have zero chance of breaking free of their cardboard confines . 
lines like : 
 " you don't beg , you insist . 
i like that in a woman . " 
that's parillaud's character talking . . . 
to her cat ! 
and : 
 " you're not the reason i couldn't care less about you . " 
huh ? 
and this wonderful bathroom interchange early in the film : 
 " if you give me a couple of minutes you know i'll charm the pants off you . " 
 " i don't have that kind of time . " 
talking of pants , parillaud has her clothes off faster than you can say " point of no return . " 
we have come to expect this from billy baldwin , but it might have been nice to have learned something about their characters first . 
but there's nothing to learn . 
karen is as interesting as a cereal box , a someone's-out-to-get-me crybaby who imagines the voice at the other end of the phone , the stranger who sends her flowers , maybe even her husband himself , is her would-be killer . 
siouxsie is the chromium cool , tough-as-nails crack killing machine who shoots out a couple of mirrors in order to justify the film's meaningless stock title . 
baldwin seems more interested in parillaud's nest egg ( so that he can pave paradise and put up a parking lot ) than he does in her . 
each time graham greene shows up he gets killed . 
barbet schroeder ( " reversal of fortune " ) co-produced and should be ashamed of himself . 
every now and again it's fun to watch a really bad movie . 
and every now and again , as " shattered image " makes agonizingly clear , it isn't .