Alan Rudolph is probably one of the most prolific filmmakers not heard of by many people. Last year, Breakfast of Champions, based on Kurt Vonnegut's book, was released and subsequently disappeared. Before that, his last film was Afterglow. Now comes Trixie, which will probably die a quick death. In a way, this may be a good thing. The title character, Trixie Zurbo (Emily Watson, Angela's Ashes, Cradle Will Rock) is basically an idiot, and watching her operate becomes tiring after some time.

Trixie is a washed-up cop. She takes a job as a casino security guard, where her life begins to get interesting. Dex Lang (Dermot Mulroney, Where the Money Is, Goodbye Lover) begins hitting on her and she slowly opens to his affections. Her affection for him is bizarre. She initially hates him, but warms up to him because he keeps pestering her. He works for Red Rafferty (Will Patton, Jesus' Son, Gone in Sixty Seconds), a shady real estate developer. Trixie unwittingly ends up on a boat with Dex, Red, State Senator Drummond Avery (Nick Nolte, Simpatico, Breakfast of Champions), and singer Dawn Sloane (Lesley Ann Warren, The Limey, Teaching Mrs. Tingle). Later, Dex comes to Trixie, afraid for his life and babbling about some tape. Trixie goes to find Dawn, also deathly afraid and mumbling about a tape. Dawn turns up dead, and Trixie finally begins to bumble her way through her first case.

Working with Trixie are lounge singer Kirk Stans (annoying as always Nathan Lane, Love's Labour's Lost, Titan A.E.) and Ruby Pearli (Brittany Murphy, Girl, Interrupted, FOX's King of the Hill). They believe that Rafferty and Avery have something to do with the murder. The main setback is that Trixie is a one-joke movie. The joke is that Trixie mixes her metaphors. She is also an idiot. Rather than seek out clues to solve the murder, she The people around her have no clue what she's talking about when she says things like "you got to grab the bull by the tail and look it in the eye" and such. It's amusing for a while, but becomes tiring quickly. And it goes the entire length of the movie. However, Rudolph does do well mining nearly every metaphor known to man. All the actors seem to merely be biding their time before the movie ends, which is longer than hoped for.