While this film is about an 18th-century Scottish outlaw, the best way to enjoy it is to ignore the silly feudal feuding and trivial royal politics. Think of this as a western.
The true bad guy here is Roth as a foppish hired sword who works for Hurt, the scheming, unscrupulous lord of the fiefdom where Rob Roy (Neeson) is a populist rabble-rouser and champion. The movie is obviously building toward a showdown between Neeson and Roth; when it comes, it's a dandy, beautifully choreographed by fight director William Hobbs.
En route to that fight, Neeson and Lange, as his stalwart wife, preside over a convincing love story. Two of the most seemingly mature of major actors, Neeson and Lange make it seem plausible that he would fight fanatically for her and their two sons and that she would stay fiercely loyal to him. Stoltz, as Neeson's sidekick, seems a trifle too American.
But director Michael Caton-Jones, who was born in Scotland, shows a much surer hand than he did in his earlier films (This Boy's Life). Screenwriter Alan Sharp is Scottish-born too, as is Cox, splendidly ruthless as Hurt's treasurer, and Neeson, a Northern Irishman, at least comes from the right kingdom. Their appreciation of Robert Roy MacGregor, a real historical figure, seems passionate. (R)
Marlon Brando, Johnny Depp, Faye Dunaway
Once you get over the initial shock of just how jumbo Brando's belly has become—we're talking floating tractor tire here—you will discover plenty of other diversions worthy of attention in this winningly offbeat comedy. Although slight, Don Juan DeMarco is sweet-natured and features zesty performances by Brando (more engaged here than he has been in other recent films) and, especially, Depp.
It's Depp who, with exactly the right mix of vulnerability and bravado, plays the film's title character, a young man convinced he is Don Juan, the legendary 14th-century Spanish nobleman and amatory expert. "I am the world's greatest lover," he boasts. After climbing atop a billboard and threatening suicide, Depp is sent to the loony bin where Brando, a weary psychiatrist, gets his case.
As the putative Don Juan tells the doctor his story, Brando finds himself drawn to Depp's passion. The shrink is moved to jump-start his own stalled life, exercising (the brief glimpse of Brando pumping iron is alone worth the price of admission) and reconnecting with his longtime wife (Dunaway, who shares an amusing, pajama-clad, sex scene with Brando).
Although the film's basic conceit, that the insane are really sane and it's the rest of us who lack imagination, is familiar territory (Harvey, King of Hearts) and essentially specious, Don Juan is carried by the enthusiasm of its leads and its gentle charm.
(It's a Puzzlement Department: Brando has a pronounced lisp here; whether it is affected for the part or due to recent dental work is unclear.)(R)
Lori Petty, Malcolm McDowell, Naomi Watts, Jeff Kober, Ice-T
You would have to go back to the Batman TV series to find a comic book-to-screen transposition that is this much no-pretense, flat-out fun.
The plot is never too clearly laid out, but literal-mindedness isn't the point. Playfulness is, so the plot is tabled for such scenes as a flamboyant production number in which the whole cast, mutants included, breaks into Cole Porter's "Let's Do It" in the middle of a futuristic brothel.
This doesn't really disturb the quest of Petty, who has stumbled onto a tank and taken it upon herself to combat a vaguely sinister organization, led by McDowell, that is hoarding water, which has become scarce in 2033. Petty's allies are a group of "Rippers,"—half men, half kangaroos—and Australian actress Watts as a pilot who becomes a sidekick called Jet Girl. The Rippers, who look like fur-and height-impaired Wookies, include Kober, who sounds like an addled surfer dude; Reg Cathey, who resembles Soul Train's Don Cornelius; and rapper Ice-T as the most mundane man-kangaroo in history.
Screenwriter Tedi Sarafian's imagination holds up well as he adapts the comic created by Jamie Hewlett and Alan Martin in 1988. Petty is frisky and ironic enough to carry off her unapologetically cartoonish part. (R)
Chris Farley, David Spade, Bo Derek, Brian Dennehy, Julie Warner, Rob Lowe
My father, a man in his seventh decade, has for almost 20 years adhered strictly to one movie-viewing rule: He avoids all films starring Chevy Chase, Dan Aykroyd or, more recently, Dana Carvey. This, he claims, has saved him countless wasted hours and brain cells.
I think that Dad might want to add Farley and Spade to his list. In Tommy Boy, these two members of the current Saturday Night Live cast fare no better—and no worse, which isn't saying much—than most of their SNL-to-celluloid predecessors. (Aykroyd, in a sort of generational passing of the torch, has a supporting role here.)
Farley and Spade head cross-country on a sales trip after Farley's father (Dennehy), a prosperous auto-parts manufacturer, keels over dead. The trip's success or failure will determine the future of the family business. Plotting to sell rather than save the company are Derek, the father's newly widowed bride, and the surly stud she passes off as her son (Lowe).
The jokes are mostly obvious and the acting shallow. In fairness, I should report that the thirtysomething gentleman sitting across from me guffawed continuously. I will not be taking him home to meet Dad. (PG-13)
- Contributors:
- Ralph Novak,
- Leah Rozen.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
