"Hey, I don't want you to do anything illegal -- you can quote me on that."

As is usual of director Brian De Palma, this thriller is sensationalistic, exploitative, twisted, and rips off Hitchcock. But it's so intensely riveting, you can't stop watching it, and by the time it's over, you ease down from a satisfying emotional high. The climax is a humdinger, but the extra chapter that follows it should have been excised. For that matter, the first ten minutes should have been dispensed with, too. But the stuff between is magic.