Kenneth Branagh, Emma Thompson
Eerily charming, stylish and full of deftly acted idiosyncratic characters, this is one hard-to-resist romantic thriller.
The British acting couple of Branagh (Henry V) and Thompson (The Tall Guy) each plays two roles. She is a woman found wandering amnesiac in present-day Los Angeles, terrified by nightmares suggesting a famous husband-wife murder of 43 years ago. He is an insouciant private eye who helps Thompson find her identity. Branagh and Thompson also play the couple in flashbacks to the murder.
As the detective, the splendid Branagh does one of those more-American-than-an-American accents Olivier used to do. Thompson projects palpable intelligence and wit. It's easy to imagine both of them becoming huge Hollywood stars after this—may the movie gods have mercy on their souls.
But they're far from the film's only attractions. Secondary characters include Robin Williams as an ex-shrink who's now a grocery store manager, Andy Garcia as a seedy reporter and Hanna Schygulla as a loyal housekeeper.
Remarkable even among this remarkable troupe, though, is Derek (I, Claudius) Jacobi as a fey antique dealer—hypnotist—he makes extra money by asking hypnosis clients if they know of any choice antiques while he has them under. Jacobi, who seems to get Thompson to regress to a past life under hypnosis, never quite steals the film, but he sure borrows it often.
Branagh, who also directed, and screenwriter Scott Frank wind and twist the plot tight as they head to their slickly delivered final confrontation.
They toy with a cynical, one-man's-fatal-attraction-is-another-man's-boiled-rabbit message about relationships. Thompson, as the modem Los Angelena lamenting the '40s couple's fate, says, "They seemed so in love." Branagh replies, "Well, those are the people who usually kill each other."
The movie's reincarnation notions are similarly presented, with enough sincerity to please believers and enough derision to satisfy skeptics. Suffice it to say that anyone who in a previous incarnation—or even this one—loved Laura should love this film. (R)
John Turturro, John Goodman
Seeing this movie is like seeing a room where two bratty 9-year-olds have gone wild with finger paints. While it's interesting to look at, the mess factor comes to dominate.
The film is written, directed and self-indulged by brothers Joel and Ethan Coen (Miller's Crossing), who call it a comedy, though it features alcoholism, murder and hellfires.
Turturro is a pretentious New York City playwright—his new play is "a celebration of the common man"—who goes to Hollywood in the '40s to write movies. He takes a room in a hotel where his next-door neighbor, Goodman as a hail-fellow salesman, drops by to share a drink with Turturro or demonstrate wrestling holds.
Turturro also encounters a Faulkneresque southern writer, John Ma-honey, who is shepherded through drinking bouts by Judy Davis. Michael Lerner is a slobbish studio executive. Soon some Los Angeles cops start hassling Turturro about a murder, his writer's block reaches critical mass, and everything disintegrates in a shoot-out complete with bizarre flames.
The scattershot movie ends up leaving only a blotted impression. Turturro's title character has a name, for instance, that is a synonym for "strikebreaker" and antithetical to his pro—working-man speeches. But this notion leads nowhere and has nothing to do with Faulkner or murder or the repeated image of things cracking.
It's as if The Day of the Locust, The Bad and the Beautiful and Chinatown had been snipped into pieces, then re-spliced at random. That this film won three awards at Cannes can only enhance that festival's reputation as the place to go to see starlets disrobe. (R)
Bingo, Robert J. Steinmiller Jr.
Lovable, rascally, unappreciated waif foils sort-of-likable crooks: Call it In the Doghouse Alone.
Mostly, Bingo is a typical movie mutt. But at times director Matthews Robbins and writer Jim Strain get inspired, and Bingo gets appealingly whacked out, as vulnerable as Bill Murray in hangdog mode, as resourceful as David Janssen in The Fugitive.
Bingo knows Morse code, dials phones and seduces a spaniel with champagne. The movie also explores the canine subconscious: a traumatic event from Bingo's puppyhood.
Steinmiller is a boy who adopts Bingo. Among the film's happy traits is its shameless overstatement. The boy's dad, David Rasche, is a pro football placekicker so fanatical about his team that everything he owns—down to Denver Broncos wallpaper in his bathroom—proclaims his allegiance.
As the armored car—robbing crooks, Kurt Fuller and Joe Guzaldo are enjoy-ably extravagant too. Fuller wants to sign a pro-whale petition, and when Guzaldo reminds him that they are felons and can't vote, Fuller gets indignant: "That doesn't mean we can't contribute in other ways."
Bingo never succumbs to animal film earnestness. And other than a variation on Chinese water torture—people singing the "Bingo was his name-oh" song—it is an easy-to-take shaggy-dog story. If it doesn't have much of an ending—or a beginning or middle—it goes by pleasantly. (PG)
