in " twilight , " a ex-alcoholic , ex-cop , ex-husband , ex-private-eye , harry ross ( paul newman ) , works for a pair of aging hollywood actors , catherine ( susan sarandon ) and jack ames ( gene hackman ) . 
jack is being blackmailed , and he asks harry to deliver the payoff . 
instead of the blackmailers , harry finds a dying ex-cop ( m . 
emmet walsh ) . 
as more bodies begin to pile up , harry realizes that he will have to solve the disappearance of catherine's first husband twenty years earlier to find out who's willing to kill to keep that secret buried . 
newman . sarandon . 
hackman . 
with an a-list cast of oscar laureates like that , " twilight " would seem very promising . 
however , the script is tired and predictable . 
it would serve well as a tv-movie-of-the-week , possibly with some 1970's detective hero reprising his role . 
the appeal of the project for its stars and its director , robert benton , is nostalgia . 
 " twilight " wants very much to be a 1940's film noir with alan ladd or dick powell . 
all of the standard tropes are here : a hard-boiled p . i . 
among the rich and beautiful whose glamour hides sinister secrets , a femme fatale who tempts and confounds the hero , shadowy figures shooting from doorways , dead bodies confronting the hero at every turn , cops dogging his path and interfering with his investigation . 
the script offers little originality , and co-authors benton and richard russo seem unaware that what was original in 1948 is a clich ? in 1998 . 
elmer bernstein's score is hauntingly melodic and could have been drawn note-for-note from a vintage noir . 
the lead actors try hard-none of the three has every made less than a full effort , even when burdened with a bad script . 
they try to invest every line and gesture with meaning , and they create a convincing sense of the relationships between the main characters . 
harry is fond of jack but is in love with catherine . 
jack is dying of cancer and is jealous of harry's love for catherine . 
catherine teases harry and enjoys his attention , but her real feelings are hidden beneath a carefully-maintained veneer . 
 " twilight " wants to be character-driven like " nobody's fool " ( also directed by benton , also starring newman , based on a novel by russo ) was , but the tired script gives the actors too little to work with . 
 " twilight " also squanders a fine supporting cast : stockard channing ( harry's friend on the police force ) , reese witherspoon ( jack & catherine's bratty kid ) , giancarlo esposito ( the humorous sidekick ) , john spencer ( harry's nemesis on the force ) , liev schreiber and margo martindale ( the blackmailers ) , and james garner ( a cop who bailed movie stars out of trouble ) .