Boxoffice-August.1989

I
In tails its hapless Britisli hero, played by Riciiard E. Grant.
lircl at work on a pimple cream accoimt, Grant develops a zit
liiinself, which metamorphoses by turns into aboil, and then a
\i,stigial second head, which talks. Since Grant's first head
alieady talks quite a lot, this makes for a severely talky movie.
Writer-director Bruce Robinson has invented for his "Withnail
and I" star Grant the quintesssential Kafka predicament; he
wakes up to find his whole life completely different. While
this dilemma shows off Grant's talents wonderfully — he
plays the smarmy second head in addition to the first — it
plays against Robinson's own strengths.
Because the heads are never the same size at the same time,
Robinson can't write any great footloose auto-dialogues
between them. They merely take turns making speeches.
First the original head, whose two-faced hypocrisy has now
been made disgustingly manifest, gets in a few good shots.
Then the new head, who stands for every base, lying, cutthroat
impulse Grant ever got a promotion for, gets equal time.
Like Chayefsky and that other great satirist George Bernard
Shaw, Robinson can't resist giving the Devil all the best lines.
(Remember network head Ned Beatty's hymn to money in
"Network"?)
You couldn't ask for a writer who hates Thatcherism any
more than Bruce Robinson; he practically takes out a contract
on her in every interview he gives. But because her eat-thepoor
philosophy is so much funnier than the Utopian social
democracy she threw out, Robinson's in a pickle. He's written
a two-headed movie with no heart in it, and midway through
the pacing goes haywire. Just when he's almost got all of
contemporary Britain in his crosshairs, he remembers that
he's supposed to be satirizing the media, and trades in his
elephant gun for a club to beat MTV with.
This failure of nerve is doubly distressing because it comes
after some really promising set-pieces. Robinson caine to
directing late after writing "The Killing Fields," but you'd never
know it from the way he stages Grant's initial flip-out to
Saint-Saens' Organ Symphony. It takes a born director to hear
a film score in a piece of music written 150 years ago, but
Robinson manages. He just needs to refine his obsessions out
to feature length, and write himself bigger casts of characters
to show off his gift for directing actors. Otherwise, he might as
well be directing commercials, and we know how he feels
about those.
Rated PG-13 for some funny but revolting special effects.
— David Kipcn
CRIMINAL LAW
Starring Gary Oldman, Kevin Bacon, Tess Harper, Joe Don
Baker and Karen Young.
Produced by Robert MacLean and Hilary Heath Directed by
Martin Campbell Written by Mark Kasdan
A Hemdale release. Thriller, rated R Running time: 117 min
Screening date: 6/8/89
"Criminal Law" addresses the defense attorney's worst fear:
what if you successfully defend a person who is not only
guilty, but truly dangerous? That is exactly the situation that
Boston lawyer Ben Chase (Gary Oldman) finds himself in. An
overconfident hotshot who loves the competitive aspects of
the courtroom, he successfully defends his client Martin Thiel
(Kevin Bacon), who is accused of a brutal rape-murder.
The case makes Chase's career, riding high on his success,
he proves smarmily infuriating to local police investigators
(Joe Don Baker and Tess Harper), who want to keep nuts off
the street. But then the attorney discovers that his client is
serial killer who rapes and murders women, then mutilates
them with a blow torch. Thiel leaves a victim in a local park
for Chase to find (an eerie, gory, highly suspenseful scene),
then offers him a retainer for his future (and apparently
imminent) re-trial. Chase accepts the money with the idea
that, as Thiel's confidant, he's bound to find evidence that will
finally, irrevocably prove his client's culpability. Meanwhile,
he's falling in love with Ellen Falkner (Karen Young), the
roommate of one of Thiel's victims.
Here's where "Criminal Law" becomes psycho-babble; It
turns out that Martin's icy Yankee mother runs an upscale
abortion clinic and, viewing himself as an "avenging angel,"
Martin goes about killing women who have had their pregnancies
terminated. Eventually, he even murders his dear old
a
Mom.
It's pretty standard stuff', but "Criminal Law" is slickly shot
and art directed, full of beautifully lit shots with a strong
textural feel. The editing is skillful enough to create a spooky
sense of suspense, and the casting is great, too. Oldman (with
a Bostonian accent) delivers an intense, intelligent and skillfully
drawn performance, and Bacon looks right — a monster
with angelic blue eyes and a turned up nose. And Baker is the
consummate cop, looking for all the world like he lives on jelly
doughnuts and coffee.
But now for the bad news; The love story is completely
unnecessary, and there is some truly hokey dialogue that
dilutes the power of the film considerably. But the point of the
"Criminal Law" comes through loud and clear; to quote one of
the characters, "law and justice are not the same thing."
Rated R for violence and sexual situations.— /.esn Sawaha-
TRAS EL CRISTAL
Starring Guntc) Mcisiii:i,
Parcdcs, David Su:
Gisella Echavarria.
Produced by Teresa Enrich. Directed and written by Agustin
Villaranga.
A Cinevista release. Holocaust drama, rated R. Running time
92 mins
Some people say that movies automatically trivialize the
Holocaust, and should stick to lighter themes — as if there
could be heavier ones. Others contend that only through art,
rather than statistics, can we hope to comprehend the enormity
of what happened. We've always believed that no one who
derives a living from the movies, in whatever capacity, has
any business going around affirming their essential triviality.
We still believe it; would that Agustin Villaronga believed
otherwise, though, because his film "Tras el Cristal" is exactly
the kind of picture people point to when they say that art is
insufficient to convey history. Art isn't insufficient; schlock
is.
"Tras el Cristal" means "behind the glass," specifically, the
glass faceplate of the iron lung to which Gunter Meisner has
been confined ever since he suffered a fall while sadomasochistically
torturing a Catalonian boy. This is how Gunter
passes the time until the Nazis can rise again and he can go
back to his old job as a concentration camp doctor. His wife
contracts with a young male nurse to tend Meisner. This nurse
may or may not have been Meisner's Jewish trusty from the
camp, out for revenge. Whoever he is, pretty soon he has the
nm of the household, molesting Meisner's pubescent daughter,
strangling the woman who hired him, and regularly turning
off his patient's life-support for minutes at a time before
hooking him back up again just in time. Then things get
weird.
To be fair, Villaronga cannot have set out to make such a
sordid wallow in Nazi atrocities. There's evidence along the
way that his ambitions were fairly high. He obviously wants to
make some kind of connection between political repression
and sexual repression, but he counts on the shock value of his
tale to compensate for his lack of thematic rigor, and that's
unforgivable. If you think you're so cool as to be past offending,
see "Tras el Cristal." The sight of a small boy dying by
lethal injection may change your mind.
Not rated, but beware. — David Kipen
THE MUSIC TEACHER
Starring Jose van ['>ain .-\}inr Roussel and Philippe Volter
Produced by /(u (/;i, //n, I'l, ) n ii.v Directed by Gerard Corbiau
Written by Gerard Cmluiui .\ndree Corbiau, Patrick Iratni. Jacqueline
Pierreux and C.lui.-ituni Watton.
An Orion Classic release Drama with music, rated PG In
French with Eriglish subtitles Running time: 100 miri Screening
date: 6/5/89
One wouldn't expect a large audience for a subtitled, low
budget drama with no recognizable stars about an opera singer
who retires at the peak of his career to train a young student
And yet Gerard Corbiau has crafted a film that embodies the
inystery and magic of great art. Though set at the turn of the
century, this story of pride, ambition and competition should
prove relevant to modern audiences. Perhaps that's why this
Belgium production was nominated last year for the Oscar for
August, 1989 R-54