in the opening scene of slow burn and an assistant district attorney ( jolene blalock ) be find wander the street of the city and dishevel and confuse and inform those who find her that she have just kill a rapist in self defense . the allege attacker ( mekhi phifer ) be a man she supposedly meet one night in a record store and who then proceed to stalk her for week thereafter . suddenly and into the head d. a. office stride ll cool j and a a friend of the decease who have a considerably different story to tell about the event lead up to the murder as well a an entirely disparate take on the couple relationship . thing get even more dicey when we discover that the d. a . ( ray liotta ) and the assistant d. a. have be conduct a torrid affair of their own for a number of year now . slow burn fails on so many level of rudimentary storytelling and film making that it hard to know where exactly to begin in compile a list of it shortcoming . to start with and there something inherently self defeating and pointless in construct a narrative from two widely conflict viewpoint a la rashomon when one of the suppose eyewitness be already dead and and thus and unable to personally relate his side of the story . how do it enhance the verisimilitude of the tale if most of our information have to come filter down to u through a secondhand source and a person who wasn not even present at the event he describe unless and of course and he be hide in a nearby closet during all those intimate moment he be able to recount in such juicy and exhaustive detail . either that or the murder victim be one of the chattiest and kiss and tell gossip in the history of the movie . and why do it take till the closing reel for the supposedly intelligent professional investigator to smell a rat in that setup . eventually and the twist and turn plot lead to so much incoherence and confusion that you might well wonder if the filmmaker themselves understand what it be they be do . beyond the clumsy and inscrutable storytelling and slow burn also suffer from some of the most overripe dialogue this side of the black dahlia . with such knee slap howler a she stand there like a tangerine and ripe and ready to be peel and she walk in smell like mash potato and every guy within thirty foot want to be the gravy and the script could easily win first prize in a bad film noir write contest . it hard to believe at such time that the film isn not actually intend to be a parody ( the acting sure suggest it on occasion ) . on second thought and perhaps it would be best to stick with that notion while it just might go down easier that way .