Maynard Eziashi, Pierce Brosnan
Even on its most basic level—as the story of a decent, basically sweet-hearted young man overwhelmed by capriciously tragic circumstances—this is a captivating, powerful film, full of honestly earned tears and laughter. Eziashi's performance as the title character is a masterful display of subtlety and insight into a man of great loyalty and deep love for his wife and child, as well as irresistible impulses to lie and steal.
But the movie is also a fascinating evocation of the contradictions involved in the colonial era in Africa in particular and the meeting of disparate cultures in general.
Efficiently adapted by novelist William Boyd from Joyce Cary's 1939 book and directed by Bruce (Driving Miss Daisy) Beresford with an appreciation of the power of simplicity, the film is set in 1923 in British West Africa. Eziashi, a Nigerian, plays an African clerk working for Brosnan, a functionary who oversees a dreary British outpost.
Eziashi dresses in a white suit and tries so hard to ingratiate himself that he keeps talking about things "home in England." He helps Brosnan juggle his books to finance a pet road project, then gets fired when the discrepancy is discovered. Later, he works at a store run by Edward (The Equalizer) Woodward but gets fired there too after stealing.
Finally, betrayed by his colonial masters and so unable to cope with traditional West African society that his wife leaves him. Eziashi is driven to a last, disastrous crime.
The film doesn't romanticize Eziashi's character. He is likable but hardly angelic, and his pathetic attempts to seem English are all the more moving for being so sincere.
Eziashi embodies all these conflicts marvelously. Watch how he reacts when the racist Woodward offhandedly says. "Treat 'em right. I always say, and they aren't half as black as they look."
The rest of the cast is equally superb, from Brosnan and Woodward to Beatie Edney as Brosnan's compassionate wife and the striking Nigerian Bella Enahoro, who plays Eziashi's tradition-bound wife.
Eventually this film, shot in the austere savanna of Nigeria, will rank with the great movies about the infinity of damage done by a few years of European colonialism: David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia and A Passage to India, Fred Schepisi's The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, Jean-Jacques Annaud's Black and White in Color.
For now it is a fascinating story whose last images stay in the mind like a bitter, unanswered cry of anguish. (PG-13)
Christopher Walken, Natasha Richardson
A riddle, wrapped in an enigma, sitting on a whoopee cushion full of darts, this teasingly wicked film might intrigue anyone it catches in the right mood: morbid curiosity.
Richardson and Rupert (Dance with a Stranger) Everett play an English couple on holiday in Venice, when Walken starts appearing in their lives, specter style. It sounds like Nicolas Roeg's Don't Look Now, but that bizarro film is linear next to this backhanded tribute to sadomasochism.
Walken, smirkily playing a macho Italian, uses the same phony-baloney accent he employed in a 1990 Saturday Night Live skit about a French playboy. The affectedness adds to the eerie mood as he and his wife, Helen (The Mosquito Coast) Mirren, try to seduce Richardson and Everett.
Since the film was directed by Paul (Cat People) Schrader and written by Harold Pinter, it's clear that you'll get from point A to point B only via a lot of detours. Typical dialogue goes:
"I've been bitten," Richardson says.
"Try not to scratch," Everett tells her.
"You'll have to look out for me."
"Why, did you look out for me yesterday?"
"I'm so thirsty."
Schrader's camera wanders off at times to ponder walls, chairs and passersby. The light and costumes are strangely full of golds and browns. A final violent event is carried out in a surreal context.
The film ends with Walken delivering the speech he was giving as it started. Little has been established, except to confirm a principle familiar to philosophers and puppies: There's a certain distracting comfort in chasing your tail every once in a while. (R)
Ernie Reyes Jr.
Cowabunco!
This swindle of a sequel is so dim that it looks as if it were lit by candles. Its no-name cast is padded with the director's relatives and crew members doing double duty.
The opening sequence, showing people walking around New York City eating pizza, could be a joke about the Turtles' notorious appetites but leads nowhere.
There are a couple of decent bits—one of the Turtles drinks out of a Bart Simpson glass, for instance, one fad saluting another. Never, though, does the film approach the fun of the cartoon series that made the Turtles the monster reptiles they are today.
Paige Turco plays the all-but-invisible April O'Neil; Reyes is a martial-arts expert who helps the Turtles. There are two new Turtle voices, with Laurie Faso making Raphael sound like a sneery lounge comic. Vanilla Ice appears but just gets to rap a line or two and dance a few steps.
The director is Michael (Doctor Detroit) Pressman. (His parents have small roles, so at least he has the family working.) He and writer Todd Langen mostly just alternate dull transitions and punch-outs.
Oh, yes, Splinter isn't looking nearly so mangy. Maybe something good has come out of all this: the Hair Club for Rats. (PG)
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!
