Also this issue: Wide Open Spaces Frederick Wiseman’s documentaries give reality time to breathe. -Sam Adams Web Pierce Spider delves into a madman’s mind, but leaves the door open a crack. -Sam Adams Interview: David Cronenberg -S.A Backwards Thinking Irréversible’s reverse philosophy undoes the logic of vengeance. -Cindy Fuchs Screen Picks -Sam Adams Continuing Repertory Film Showtimes

March 13-19, 2003

movie shorts

New

AGENT CODY BANKS

(Not reviewed.) A haiku:

Frankie babe, Arnie's

on board for part two: Malcolm

In The Middle East.

(AMC Orleans; Bridge; UA 69th St.; UA Cheltenham; UA Grant)

THE HUNTED

Benicio Del Toro looks appropriately haunted as a hyper-trained military assassin who loses his bearings when he slices open one too many gullets. (This one belongs to a Serbian commander who has just ordered his unit to slaughter a village, so Del Toro looks like he's doing a right thing.) When he starts killing deer hunters in Oregon, the FBI, represented by Connie Nielsen, calls in renowned deep-woods tracker and assassin trainer Tommy Lee Jones, who happens to be Del Toro's instructor/father figure. (The movie quotes the story of Abraham's sacrifice repeatedly.) From here William Friedkin's movie, which begins as an indictment of turning men into killing machines, itself transforms into Rambo meets The Fugitive, and becomes more ridiculous by the minute. Reportedly, an early script had the Del Toro character camouflaging himself in downtown Portland, so that he could stand against a wall and seem invisible. Unfortunately, this sounds almost sane compared to what ended up on screen: impossible changes in location, noticeably incoherent editing, and a white wolf, befriended by Jones out in the snowy boonies, that represents freedom, individual will, perseverance, etc.--Cindy Fuchs (AMC Orleans; Bridge; UA 69th St.; UA Cheltenham; UA Grant; Ritz 16)

LAWLESS HEART

This British triptych reaches an uncomfortable peak in its first third and never quite recovers in the remaining two. Beginning with the funeral of Stuart, a gay restaurateur on the Isle of Man, and spinning the tales of his friends' reactions to his death, Lawless Heart encompasses midlife crises, extramarital affairs and uneasy alliances. As the dead man's brother-in-law, Bill Nighy delivers the most complex performance as a desperate middle-aged man who pursues an ill-considered flirtation with the local florist, escaping in part from the money troubles that lead to some ugly wrangling over Stuart's will. Douglas Henshall's Donal Logue-esque prodigal gets part two to himself, while Tom Hollander (the cash-poor husband from Gosford Park) takes over part three as the widowed lover who finds himself taking solace in the oddest of places (i.e. heterosexuality). Lawless Heart has plenty of pleasing small moments, but its conceits are more literary than filmic, and there's not much point to its trifold structure other than camouflaging its pedestrian origins. Not every movie has to try and change the world, of course, but it can still reflect it to greater purpose.--Sam Adams (Ritz at the Bourse; Ritz 16)

WILLARD

The ghost of the original Willard looms literally over James Wong and Glen Morgan's remake, in the form of a portrait of Bruce Davison, star of the 1971 original. Here, though, he's only a painting of the deceased father of Willard Stiles (Crispin Glover), a hyperbolically maladjusted (not-so) young man with a fashion sense tending towards the funereal. Harangued by his mother, abused by his boss (R. Lee Ermey, with a James Traficant 'do), Willard has no one to turn to, until he strikes up a friendship with the rats in his basement, who repay his friendship by doing his bidding, with increasingly toothsome results. Morgan and Wong, the X-Files team who also helmed Final Destination, show real skill with details, from the red-rimmed, ratlike eyes of Willard's decrepit mother to the determination with which Willard initially seeks out rat traps that won't force him to confront their dead bodies. (If you think his unwillingness to get his hands dirty at this point is suggestive, just wait until he turns to "Tora Bora Rodent Destroya.") But if the details are right, the devil is elsewhere, namely with Glover, who starts off acting so crazy that you forget it's supposed to mean something when his character actually does go nuts. The movie is heavy with references, from a massacre scored to the theme from Ben to several blatant lifts from Psycho -- so heavy, in fact, that it starts to occur to you that it's never going to take off on its own. Hampered by a rushed and incoherent climax, Willard starts much more promisingly than you'd think, and ends just about as you'd expect.--S.A. (AMC Orleans; Cinemagic; UA 69th St.; UA Cheltenham; UA Grant)