Reviews

Okay, let's see if I got this straight...the assassination target is a Serbian general attacking Muslim villages, but the cars all have Hungarian plates, and the locals all speak Hungarian, not any Slavic language. Okay, we'll suspend our disbelief that there are any Muslim villages in Hungary. But if Serbia were attacking Hungary, a NATO member, the response of the West would be something more than sending over a couple of guys who look like anything but Eastern Europeans. NATO is a mutual defense pact that comes to the defense of any member (well, NATO gets involved with other adventures, too, but that's a different debate).

So we find out that there are opposition leaders being held without charges in prison. Wonder whether the European Union knew about this when it invited Hungary to be a candidate for EU membership?

In any case, before Hungary joins the EU, it'll definitely have to do something about its product safety standards, particularly the tendency of every vehicle to explode into an enormous fireball when crashed, shot, bumped, or if its doors are slammed too hard. How big a fireball would an exploding Trabant be able to produce anyway, with its feeble East German two-stroke engine that's comparable to a lawnmower?

Did anyone notice that our heroes were dropped off by a helicopter marked "SFOR", but picked up by an unmarked helicopter? One might assume there was an enormous diplomatic outcry when the Bosnia-based UN Stabilization Force (SFOR) exceeded its mandate by carrying out a mission that took it over Croatian or Serbian territory and into Hungary, so when they made the trip again, SFOR removed all the identifying details. Either that or the film's continuity person fell asleep on the job.

And what was up with the heroes' desperate dash for "the border"? If they were in Hungary, they were safe. If they were dashing for the Croatian or Romanian borders, they'd be safe there too. But since they were in a place where villages were being attacked by Serbia, they were presumably close to the Serbian border. Why on earth would they want to reach the Serbian border? Shouldn't they be sitting tight, safe in Hungary, waiting for the NATO airstrikes to end the little Serbian incursion into Hungary?

And who were the bad guys, anyway? Invading Serbian troops who can somehow move freely around the streets of Hungarian cities, commandeering police cars without resistance, conducting shootouts on the street without any protest from Hungarians?

If anyone out there considering making "Sniper 3," please pick up a world atlas and read a few newspapers before you write the script!

Did Helen Hunt really win an Oscar not too long ago? I think she's fallen into the Cuba Gooding Jr. trap of reprising the Oscar-winning performance over and over, not seeming to notice that the first movie has ended. If she plays one more struggling single mom with a heart of gold, I'm going to have to add her to the short list of Actors To Avoid At All Costs (which currently includes Robin Williams, Melanie Griffith, Freddie Prinze Jr., and Whoopi Goldberg). It's a drastic step to take, Ms. Hunt...please don't make me do it.

"Pay It Forward" is a relentlessly manipulative, mawkish soap opera. Everything about it is unrealistic, from guzzling vodka straight from a bottle hidden in the light fixture (doesn't it get hot?), to high-security schools with metal detectors that don't have any security guards to intervene when kids are being beaten, from a Hollywood-style homeless-people landscape of burning trash barrels and shuffling winos, to a "Field of Dreams"-like line of thousands of car headlights making a pilgrimage toward a suburban house (where will they all park?).

I didn't believe anything about this movie, not for a second. But I tried...I really WANTED to believe in the "pay it forward" idea, in the inherent altruism of man. But "Pay It Forward" kept reminding me that it's not the concept that matters, but the ability of the marketing people can try to pack fannies into theater seats. Put together a few off-the-shelf plot ideas--a kid plays matchmaker, emotionally damaged adults find love, bullies threaten the nice kids, alcohol is evil--and wait for the box office receipts to roll in.

How easy is it to track down a homeless person in another city, based on a vague description given by a stranger? How often do kids get killed in YOUR school? Did Mom get fired from her job that required her to wear the blue wig at the beginning of the movie, or was her I-just-found-a-new-job scene left on the cutting room floor? Isn't it convenient that Jon Bon Jovi shows up at exactly the time the plot requires a relationship crisis?

"Pay It Forward" is a bad, bad movie. Give it a wide berth.

I found "Peril" in my local video shop back in Sofia, Bulgaria. Sure, straight-to-video-in-Bulgaria films tend to be real stinkers, but after the first 15 minutes of the film, I started to think I had found an exception to the rule. Michael Pare is a mental patient who goes on a violent rampage. Meanwhile, Morgan Fairchild is a harried housewife who accompanies her semi-disabled husband on a not-quite-legal treasure hunt. The husband falls into a storm drain and can't get out, and Ms. Fairchild goes for help because the water will start rising soon. So far, so good.

Unfortunately, it's all downhill from here. Ms. Fairchild meets Mr. Pare, who kidnaps her. Pointless mayhem ensues, including crack police sharpshooters (okay, one guy sitting on top of a wobbly van...think he'll miss?), a hostage crisis in a gasoline-soaked grocery store, an old station wagon able to outrun a slew of Vermont police cars, and rising water that threatens the trapped husband (who lies moaning in agony, gripping his broken leg, when the plot requires him to be helpless, but can run with just a slight limp when the plot requires him to be helpful).

By the 30-minute mark, I found myself shouting helpful advice to the characters, particularly Ms. Fairchild, who must have read only the first few pages of the script before accepting this role (I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt here). By the 60-minute mark, "Peril" had crossed the line into the painful-to-watch category.

Let's go back to the husband trapped in the storm drain for a moment. He's too heavy for the wife to lift him, so she goes for help. Now that the water is rising, shouldn't it help him? He can simply float up with the water and pull himself out, right? Nope, in "Peril," the screenplay confuses his situation with the often-used movie crisis in which a person is held/chained down while the water's rising (like in "Titanic" or "Hard Rain"), and shows us shots of the water rising slowly up and over his body. You're not chained down, pal...use your arms and swim, already!

This movie was released straight-to-video here in Bulgaria. However, "Cause of Death" turns out to be a surprisingly entertaining whodunit. It has a couple of major flaws in the story, but nothing so serious as to prevent me from recommending it as a weeknight rental.

Patrick Bergin is the prosecutor leading the case against Joan Severance, who's accused of the brutal shotgun murder of her husband, a corrupt businessman. But things get complicated, and Bergin starts to develop some sympathies toward the defendant's story, and soon Severance is responding. Did she or didn't she commit the murder, and will he or won't he cross the line between the prosecution and the defense?

I mentioned a couple of major flaws. One is that it takes too long to explain an episode from Bergin's past that makes him especially cautious in the case against Severance. The viewer is left to wonder for about 70 of the film's 90 minutes what all of the references to the "Gennaro case" mean, and whether they explain Bergin's bizarre decisions. That's the other major flaw: even when the "Gennaro case" is explained, there's still no rational explanation for the ridiculous choices Bergin's character makes. There are some things you can and can't do when you work in the prosecutor's office. Bergin breaks the rules in such a careless and self-destructive way as to be implausible.

But if you can be patient and wait for the "Gennaro case explanation, and you try not to think about whether Bergin's character makes realistic decisions, "Cause of Death" is a pretty good thriller. Joan Severance (whom I recall fondly from TV's "Wiseguy," as Susan Profitt, the sister of Kevin Spacey's Mel Profitt) is aging gracefully--I thank the filmmakers for including a lingerie scene.

Maxim Roy plays Bergin's long-suffering co-prosecutor, who has a crush on him. She has an electric presence, stealing every scene in which she appeared (okay, there's a badly-written polygraph scene she limps through, but she does her best with some terrible lines). I'd never seen her, but I'll have to remind myself to keep an eye out for anything else she appears in.

Although Michael Ironside receives top billing on the video box, he hardly has any screen time. Maybe in a few years, around 2004-5, after Maxim Roy is a well-known screen presence, "Cause of Death" can be re-released with her name in Ironside's place. Hey, I can hope, right?

He's a two-fisted, slow-talking drifter who's just blown into town and taken a job as a bartender at the local roadhouse. But he's really a lone government agent under deep cover (don't worry; this is established in the opening scene) who's out to bust a small-town arms dealer. I think the idea behind "Radical Jack" was to make Billy Ray Cyrus an action hero, like "Road House" did for Patrick Swayze, or "Stone Cold" did for Brian Bosworth. If you're thinking, "But Swayze and Bosworth are not exactly the guys at the top of my list of action heroes," well, draw your own conclusions about Cyrus' action-hero future.

"Radical Jack" isn't a bad movie. It's an adequate straight-to-video flick, with good-looking actors, atrocious dialogue, cheesy action, and attractive scenery. I just wish it didn't seem as if everyone were taking it so seriously. The movie's set in Vermont, but the script contains references to "rednecks"...c'mon, how seriously can you take that? Lighten up, everyone. This isn't a Steven Seagal movie!

Here's an example. A character has been savagely kicked and beaten, and was nearly killed. He's being nursed back to health by an attractive woman. One thing leads to another, and suddenly she's on top of him, kissing his chest. "I...I can't," he says. "Why," she asks. And he goes off on some long tale about his tragic past. A more clever screenplay would have had him reply, "Because I have a few miles of bandages around my broken ribs, and you're sitting on my chest, that's why!"

But the movie's worth a rental, I think, as long as you're in the right mood. If you think you're getting a high-quality action thriller, you'll be miserable. But if you're the type to talk back to your TV, a la "Mystery Science Theater 3000," "Radical Jack" will have you howling.

"Fall" (the Bulgarian video title is "The FBI vs. the Mafia") is a harmless witness-protection comedy that would be fine as a 30-minute short film. However, it stretches out to 90 minutes, which seem more like 180. I believe the point was to make a character- and dialogue-driven comedy, along the lines of an Elmore Leonard adaptation. But the film centers around the wrong characters, a couple of annoying dimwits, leaving the viewer waiting for the more interesting characters for some 20 minutes at a time.

Michael Madsen is an FBI informer who agrees to testify against a Mob boss, and goes into the Witness Protection Program (Joe Mantegna pops up on screen for about one minute as Madsen's brother-in-law, an FBI agent, which apparently was enough for him to get his name on the front of the video box). Daniel Baldwin (who also directed) and Chad McQueen are the aforementioned dimwits, Mafia thugs who may--or may not--be assigned by the Mob boss in question to kill Madsen.

Baldwin and McQueen generally behave like annoying buffoons. They're not funny, despite a slapstick-sounding soundtrack. Their characters could have been acceptable in small doses, but instead, the film centers around them, pushing Madsen and his straight-arrow FBI babysitter off to the periphery of the film.

My suggestion: send this one back to the editing room. Cut 80% of the Baldwin-McQueen scenes. (Optional: stop now, and release "Fall" as a short film.) Add a lot more scenes with Madsen and the FBI babysitter. Add more background with Mantegna, the Mob boss, and whatever crime Madsen's being charged with. Add more scenes to the chase at the beginning/end of the movie, so the viewer can figure out how Madsen is caught.

Don't get me wrong: even with the edits, "Fall" isn't going to be "Go," or "Pulp Fiction," or "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels." But at least it has the potential to get onto the "This Week's Picks" shelf at your local video rental shop. I think that's worth a trip back to the editing room...don't you?

My wife didn't catch the name of the movie when it started playing on Bulgarian national TV tonight. I checked the listings, and found something like "The Spy Comes Back". I started watching, and found Bill Cosby as some sort of aging spy acting foolishly. "Oh, no," I thought..."it's 'Leonard, Part 6'!" I was relieved to find I was mistaken, and the movie was "I Spy Returns". The relief didn't last long, though.

The premise is, Robert Culp and Bill Cosby are now much older, and their son and daughter, respectively, have joined whatever spy agency they worked for. The aging dads follow their kids around on their first field assignment to make sure they're safe. Hilarity ensues.

The movie stops dead during the long, long, long banter-and-bicker scenes between Mr. Culp and Mr. Cosby. And there's not much more to the story beyond the bantering and bickering. A few horribly choreographed action scenes (when you yell the single word "freeze!" at someone in Vienna, will they understand you're telling them in English to stop moving or be shot?), and bantering and bickering, and ...ummm, I can't think of anything else.

But that's the point of TV reunion movies, I guess: to see what the actors look like today, 25 years after they were in prime time. If there's actually a plot, interesting characters, strong dialogue, or even a semblance of intelligence, it's a bonus. "I Spy Returns" aims for the bare minimum, nothing more. Yes, Mr. Culp and Mr. Cosby have indeed aged, and no, there's no other reason to see this movie.

Dad's always working and never has time to come to Justin's baseball games. Older brother Tyler models himself after Chet in "Weird Science". What's Justin to do? Naturally, plant subliminal suggestions in Mom and Dad's stop-smoking self-hypnosis tapes. Before long, Justin and little sister Monica are living large. How long can it last before Mom and Dad learn that they're being manipulated?

Actually, this movie wasn't bad. It wasn't good, either, but it was some harmless fun. A few recognizable actors signed on for the film, including Lyman Ward, whom you might remember as Ferris Bueller's dad. Come to think of it, I'm probably predisposed to any movie that features cast members from "Ferris Bueller's Day Off".

I saw the movie for free tonight on Bulgarian national TV; I'd recommend it as a rental, as long as it's on the cheap shelves and you've already seen the good new movies.

I think the concept for "Golf Punks" was something like, "Caddyshack" meets "The Bad News Bears". Trouble with that idea is that those films are some 15-20 years old. At the end of the 1990s, is there still a demand among moviegoers (or even video renters) for ragtag-band-of-lovable-losers-wins-the-big-match flicks?

National Lampoon used to attach its name to funny movies a long, long time ago. Remember "Animal House"? The "Vacation" series? For the past dozen years or so, quality has steadily declined. With "Golf Punks," National Lampoon has hit bottom. I can't recall another comedy so completely laugh-free. There's no humor, no drama, no triumph of the human spirit, no nothing. Just a few silly camera tricks that give the impression that the movie was made by a few high school students fooling around in the editing room.

Maybe National Lampoon will bounce back. If it's any consolation, it's hard to see how it can get any worse than this.

Another movie about some young, attractive Americans who go to Mexico to party hearty, dude, but find that their dream vacation has turned into a nightmare. Hasn't this ground been covered before? Haven't we seen dozens of movies with fresh-faced young heroes battling the twin demons of corrupt Mexican policemen and unresponsive American bureaucrats?

In "Hostile Intentions," three young American women cross the border with partying on their mind. They accept an invitation to a party that turns nasty, then get arrested, then...well, use your imagination as to what rotten things happen to them next. Along the way, they hook up with a Mexican guy who may or may not be on their side, then meet his family, then things get complicated as the film explores illegal immigrant smuggling.

This was a prime-time feature on Bulgarian network TV this evening. I'm glad I didn't pay to rent the movie. There isn't really any good reason to see "Hostile Intentions," unless, of course, there's nothing else on TV that hasn't been dubbed into Bulgarian.

Before I say too much about "Point Doom," somebody, please, get Angie Everhart a good script. She has too much on-screen presence to be wasted in thankless roles like this.

"Point Doom" had the potential to be 90 minutes of straight-to-video fun. Hey, it WAS fun for a while, particularly the minor fender-bender which the stunt coordinator turned into an enormous car-flipping fiery explosion. And the talent agent who never gets any phone calls, but who owns a $100,000 car and a $2 million beach house. And the bikers with perfect, straight white teeth. Really white teeth. Then again, maybe the bikers weren't all that authentic, since there was very little biking going on in the movie. Do you know any bikers who keep a late-model, American-made sedan as a backup, just in case they have to take a hostage?

There's not a lot to say about this movie, so please forgive me for not taking this review too seriously. The plot is, a high-powered (allegedly) Hollywood talent agent falls for a strip club waitress whose boyfriend is a homicidal drug-dealing biker. You can guess the rest.

I should mention that the talent agent, played by Richard Grieco, has the most obnoxious haircut seen on a male actor since...hmmm, this is tough. Does Donald Trump count? Also, Andrew "Dice" Clay is in "Point Doom," playing the character you'd expect him to play: a strip club owner. Fans of Mr. Clay should stop the movie before it finishes, if they want to avoid an embarrassing scene in which Mr. Clay's character meekly climbs into the back seat of Mr. Grieco's car. How the mighty have fallen...

But back to Ms. Everhart. She's not given much to work with here, but she tries hard with it nonetheless. What would I give to see her in a leading role in a major-studio film? If George Lucas is reading this and has parts available in future "Star Wars" films, let me recommend someone...George? Are you there?

I can picture the pitch for "Fathers' Day". "See, you got Billy Crystal and Robin Williams, and this woman tells them each that they have a long-lost son who's run away, and then the wacky adventures begin!" I suppose this idea could have worked...well, I'm not sure exactly how, but it could have.

I can picture the studio executive saying, "Sure, but make sure that Robin Williams does one of those really funny montages in which he does a bunch of different characters and voices." Yes, it's here. And yes, it's grown REALLY, REALLY OLD by now. Note to studio executive: it was funny the first few times Robin Williams did this; it's not funny anymore.

What I can't picture is the thinking that went into the scene where the characters with a fear of flying (puh-leeze!) are acting foolishly on a plane, as the camera slowly pans across the row...revealing one character holding the hand of a large black man for support. See, it's supposed to be funny, right? Because large black men are really scary, and these characters are so afraid of flying that they're not afraid of this large black man, see...? Wasn't there anyone on the set to point out that this is offensive?

If you can't get enough of Robin Williams doing the same shtick over and over again, movie after movie, then rent "Fathers' Day". Otherwise...well, you don't have to rent a movie every night, do you? Read a book, weed the garden, paint the bathroom ceiling...give "Fathers' Day" a pass.

"The White River Kid" just came out on video in Bulgaria. It's usually a warning sign when an American movie is released on video in Bulgaria before its theatrical release in the USA. This movie is no exception to that rule, and the embarrassed actors are probably hoping that the movie never makes it back to its country of origin.

I'm not sure what the movie was about. Basically, it requires a group of somewhat talented actors to play ridiculous, one-dimensional stereotypes and interact with each other. A fake priest, a serial killer, a diner waitress, a money-grubbing wetback, a family of hillbillies, a country-singin' local sheriff, and so on. I should mention that a female hillbilly wears an enormous Elvis wig and claims to pray to Elvis. And a couple of "Deliverance" extras are eaten by a herd of killer pigs. I'm not making this up.

I think the filmmakers were shooting for "wacky", or "madcap", or "screwball"...instead, they didn't achieve anything more than "embarrassing for all involved".

Okay, this isn't the greatest film of the year, but it's not completely incompetent, and it would be an okay video rental for a cold winter night (which it was when I rented it last night). But the video box has some action photos on the back, including one character holding a sharp instrument to another character's throat. Trouble is, that scene happens at the very end of the movie, after some 90 minutes of speculation about the identity of the killer. The characters may have been speculating on-screen, but home viewers knew the answer before leaving the rental shop.

The movie's about a serial killer whose killings have something to do with religion, and the atheist cop who's trying to stop the killer. Not terribly complex, although it wants to be. But any hint of complexity was eradicated by the video box!

I'd really like to be able to say more about the movie, but it was ruined for me. Remember the trailer for "Ransom", in which THE key plot element--Mel Gibson announces that the ransom is a reward--was revealed? Or the one for "The Negotiator", in which Kevin Spacey announces, "Now you'll have to deal with both of us?" Those films were pretty much ruined by their trailers' giving away the plot...but at least there was a little (VERY little) suspense in seeing the last 30 minutes of each movie.

Not "A Twist of Faith", though. There was no suspense. The very end of the movie was revealed right up front, so all of the this-man-is-above-suspicion and he's-practically-a-saint gyrations were clearly just a waste of the audience's time, until the character gets around to holding a sharp instrument to someone else's throat.

If you decide to see the movie, send someone else to the video shop for you, and have them hand you the tape without the box. Watch it without seeing the box first, and see how you like the movie. I'd like to see viewer comments from anyone who didn't have the entire movie spoiled for him, like I did.

What a mess. What a horrible movieaccompanied by an overbearing soundtrack, hitting every Kleenex-sponsored cliche along the way. I can't remember a movie I've hated as much as I hated "Stepmom". Maybe "North"...no, even that was less offensive than "Stepmom".

Who thought the audience would even begin to identify with these characters? The husband and girlfriend live in a multi-million-dollar Manhattan apartment, while the ex-wife lives on a palatial country estate. They take time off from their overpaid jobs to ferry the kids around in Range Rovers. What percentage of the audience identifies with these characters' "problems"?

We see in the trailer how senselessly vicious the ex-wife is (the Pearl Jam tickets), but there's much, much more senseless meanness...and she's mean for almost the entire movie. Even after she learns about Her Terminal Illness (puh-leeze!), she continues spewing venom at the husband and girlfriend whenever she's on-screen. And always in front of the children, which may explain why they're so horrible as well.

About these kids, the dislike I felt for them was on a par with what I felt for the daughter in "Hope Floats", or the slicked-back friend in "North", or any Macauley Culkin character. They started the movie horrible, and they stayed horrible throughout...oh, they behaved through the phony tear-jerking ending, but does anyone think these brats have suddenly turned into little angels?

Ed Harris is the husband, and Julia Roberts is the girlfriend. They had about as much chemistry as...anyone remember the romance between Roberts and Nick Nolte in "I Love Trouble"? I recall reading a review that said when those two characters kissed, it was like two blocks of wood knocking together. The phrase applies here, too.

"Stepmom" is a horrible movie. It's not even funny in its awfulness. It's offensive to think that someone paid millions of dollars to get this film made...someone thinks the movie-watching public is so brain-dead that they'll pay to see phony, blatantly manipulative treacle like this. > >

What if...? Interesting idea explored here, but not in a very deep or memorable way. Depending on whether Gwyneth Paltrow catches a train, she has two different lives.

1. She stays with her loser boyfriend, who can't end a relationship with his old girlfriend. Meanwhile she toils as a waitress and sandwich delivery person.

2. She leaves her boyfriend and starts seeing a guy whose dialogue consists mainly of Monty Python quotes. Meanwhile she toils as a public relations person.

Both storylines involve an ordinary life. Neither particularly exciting, neither particularly awful. Neither boyfriend is any great shakes. There's nothing to make you root for one possible "life" over the other, really. So it's a pleasant little series of sketches of how young professionals live in London, and not much more.

I did get the feeling the script was trying to say that the life with the Monty Python boyfriend was the "good" life, while the one with the old boyfriend was the "bad" one. But let's get real for a minute...we all know guys who quote entire Monty Python routines at great lengths, right? They have a tendency to live in their mothers' basements and spend all of their spare cash on consumer electronics and computer components. Do you see women like Gwyneth Paltrow falling for men who are obsessed with Monty Python?

John Hannah, who played the Monty Python boyfriend, has a thankless role. He has some secret, which isn't particularly awful, as it turns out...but for the convenience of the script that requires a lovers' conflict, he's forced to keep his mouth shut and watch the conflict develop, rather than say the one short sentence that will cure everything. It becomes evident early in the film that he has some secret or another. I found myself talking back to his character, "just say it, already!"

But there wasn't much of an emotional connection with him or anyone else in the film. Cute, silly, occasionally funny (particularly the best friend of the cheating boyfriend, who gets the funniest lines in the film)...but ultimately forgettable. A fine way to spend a couple hours, if you don't demand much from your movies.

I didn't know much about "Hugo Pool" when I rented it last night. It seemed to be about an interesting collection of quirky characters. What I found out is that it's a collection of quirky characters, all right, but interesting, they're not.

Here's the plot, such as it is. Alyssa Milano plays a pool cleaner. We follow her around for a day as she cleans a few pools and encounters quirky characters, some of whom are family members, others customers.

Ms. Milano is awful in the lead role. This is the caliber of acting you'd expect from the girl playing Laurie in the high school production of "Oklahoma". It's pretty much a one-note performance, as if she were told, "act impatient," so she responded by setting her jaw and stomping through the movie. Drive truck, pour chemicals, act impatient, encounter next customer, scold Mom, act impatient. No higher gear, no lower gear, just the one setting.

Sean Penn and Robert Downey Jr. are terrific actors. Something went wrong here, though. Mr. Downey does some sort of burned-out-Inspector-Clouseau routine, while Mr. Penn does some sort of grown-up-Jeff-Spicoli thing.

Whatever. At no time did I see any of these quirky characters as anything other than actors trying to act quirky.

And I kept thinking about the 44 pools Ms. Milano was supposed to clean in one day. Say 10 minutes per pool, and 10 minutes' drive between pools, and that's nearly a 15-hour day. And she kept saying she was running late. Would you want to have, say, pool #40, and have some bickering pool cleaners in your backyard at 10:00-11:00 at night?

And I got to thinking about the money. Mr. Downey's character was behind on payments, the numbers averaging out to $200 per month. Let's say there are only 44 customers, pools being cleaned once a day. So the pool cleaning company is grossing $105,600 per year. If there are 88 customers, pools being cleaned every other day, the company is grossing $211,200 per year. If pools are cleaned once a week, and the pool company works 5 days per week, the company is grossing over half a million a year.

I don't have a pool and have no idea how often pools are cleaned. But the point is, it was more interesting to sit and do the revenue calculations in my head than to watch the parade of actors acting quirky. Or badly acting.

I didn't know a thing about this movie until I rented it last night. After it ended, my wife said, "What was the point of that? It's like there was a hidden camera in somebody's house, but there was nothing interesting for the hidden camera to see." That was the problem with "The Myth of Fingerprints": we watched a group of uninteresting characters not do anything interesting for an hour-and-a-half.

Here are our characters.

1. DAD (Roy Scheider) - Dull and silent. When drunk, acts drunk.

2. MOM (Blythe Danner) - Acts like a mom.

3. BIG SISTER (Julianne Moore) - Bitter and annoying. And bitter. A completely unpleasant character...but not even interestingly unpleasant. Just bitter.

4. BIG BROTHER (Noah Wylie) - Cute and bland. Broke up with GIRLFRIEND and acts depressed until he gets back together with her.

5. LITTLE SISTER - Cute, perky, and bland.

6. LITTLE BROTHER - Doesn't do anything. Don't know why he's in the script at all, except as an excuse to write his cute, perky, and bland GIRLFRIEND into the movie.

7. BIG SISTER'S HUSBAND (or maybe BOYFRIEND) - Cute and bland. Bickers with insufferable BIG SISTER.

Well, that's our cast. What do they do? Get together for Thanksgiving and spend a few dinners together, then go home. Meanwhile, the big "conflicts" in the plot include:

1. BIG SISTER acts like a jerk and annoys everyone (including the audience).

2. BIG BROTHER finds out that GIRLFRIEND broke up with him because DAD acted drunk some time ago.

3. All characters search for something to say and do to fill up the screen time, but fail, mostly.

Well, that's our plot. Not much conflict, not much character development. Suddenly, the screen fades to black, then the credits roll. I can't recall a time when I felt LESS involved in a movie than this one. What was the point? To show how bland a family Thanksgiving dinner can be? If that was the goal, then the movie accomplished it, with flying colors.

Okay, okay, I'll grant that this is NOT a Steven Seagal action movie. That's fine. Seagal's action movies are no great shakes anyway. This is instead a virus-outbreak scientific drama. Fine. Trouble is, the level of science in this movie is about second-grade or less.

The disease is something viral. A character announces early in the movie, as the outbreak begins, that people are going to start dying in 1-2 days. However, many days go by and many characters are exposed to the virus, but the only ones who actually die are the ones that the script needs to die to show that several different experimental cures didn't work.

A character says this particular virus is 10 times as lethal as anthrax. With the mortality rate in this movie, if anthrax is one-tenth as lethal, anthrax must be about as awful as a sneezing fit.

"Universal precautions" is the term that describes how health care workers prevent the spread of disease between patients (and to the workers themselves). It means that ALL patients are considered to be contagious. So health care workers wear gloves when touching all patients and change between patients, and masks when anything might be in the air, and eye protectors when they might be splashed, etc. In "The Patriot", the government anti-viral team wears moonsuits from "Outbreak", while every other character takes ZERO precautions. Doctors don't wear gloves to handle patients with bloody vomit all over themselves. Nurses don't wear masks around patients with hacking coughs.

Dumb, dumb, dumb...

Tom Clancy writes huge thousand-page novels that introduce many, many characters, explain every detail of their motivation, list every minute thought they might have, and describe every single action they take. There is violence in the novels, but the actual violence is a tiny part of the full narrative. Clancy's novels are bestsellers. Readers love the complexity and buy everything he writes.

For a movie version to be faithful to the tone and spirit of the novel, it would have to be many, many hours long. Probably a miniseries. If this were done--if a filmmaker really wanted a faithful adaptation of a Clancy novel--Harrison Ford would be an excellent Jack Ryan (the protagonist of most Clancy novels, including "A Clear and Present Danger".

However, Hollywood simply doesn't make 16-hour movies for theaters. So by necessity, a Clancy film grabs highlights of the book: some of the characters, the basic plot outline, etc. Then the standard Hollywood conventions are applied. It's gotta have chases and shootouts. The head good guy's gotta punch out the head bad guy. Characters are either good or evil. Motivations are simple, and are determined by whether a character is good or evil.

So the tough, pricipled desk jockey of the Clancy novels becomes the gunslingin', two-fisted James Bond wannabe of the big screen. And Harrison Ford, at age 52, belongs in this role as much as Roger Moore, at age 52, belonged in "Moonraker" or any of the later Bond films. You want to offer the poor guy some Geritol before his fight scenes.

Mr. Ford slogs through the movie looking like an unmade bed. With two fists, of course. But there was nothing remotely interesting about his Jack Ryan here. Perhaps Ryan was supposed to be serious. Instead, you get the impression he was narcoleptic.

The rest of the movie--plot, dialogue, acting, etc.--was about what you'd expect from a Hollywood "techno-thriller", but the decision to cast Mr. Ford in the leading role dragged the rest of the movie down with it.