Boarding Gate (2008)

The cult of Asia Argento has come down to her being worshipped by half a dozen film critics each year at Cannes. She's like a dirty yet blank Uma Thurman who ''smolders'' instead of acts. In Boarding Gate, Olivier Assayas' lifeless corporate-erotic ''thriller,'' she plays a bad girl who's dissolute one moment and wields a handgun like Ms. 45 the next. The character makes no sense, and neither does the film, which has a few choice scenes with Michael Madsen as a financier smirking as he goes down in flames but otherwise never achieves the mod muddle of Assayas' Demonlover. This one is just murk. D+