As relentlessly dumb and implausible as the Die Hard movies but even more entertaining, this loud and violent action film profits greatly from the galvanizing presence of Connery, who could give even a Merchant-Ivory film some backbone.
The film's flimsy premise revolves around the stalwart Harris, who plays a disgruntled Marine general, a Vietnam and Gulf wars hero. He recruits a platoon of ex-Marines to steal missiles carrying poison gas so he can set up shop on Alcatraz, aim the missiles at San Francisco and extort money from the government to pay back underappreciated clandestine Marine commandos.
The plausibility level isn't boosted by Connery's character. Scruffy, longhaired and looking like a latter-day Howard Hughes in the movie's early scenes, Connery is supposed to be a former British secret agent who has become an escape expert while being held without trial for 30 years for stealing J. Edgar Hoover's secret files. He's recruited because he once escaped from Alcatraz and knows a secret way in. (Cage plays a quirky FBI chemical weapons expert.) As the plot focus bounces between Connery and Harris, things get loonier and loonier, bloodier and bloodier.
The action sequences inside the rotting hulk of the old prison are dimly lit and tough to follow, and the dialogue is saturated with clichés. Characters frequently pause in mid-crisis to philosophize about the nature of justice. The Rock would have had a hard time cracking anyone's list of Top 10 films made about Alcatraz were it not for Connery, who always manages to preserve a film's dignity as well as his own. (R)
Whoopi Goldberg, Frank Langella
It hasn't been a very good spring for the New York Knickerbockers. First they were dismissed from the NBA play-offs by their arch-rivals, the Chicago Bulls. Now they are the focus of this listless basketball comedy about a rabid fan (Goldberg) who wins a free-throw-shooting contest to become the team's "honorary coach." She ends up taking the job for real and sparring with the Knicks' gimmick-loving owner (Langella).
Goldberg's ingratiating charm and energy keep the movie afloat for a while, but it eventually sinks under the weight of its own silliness. Director Steve Rash (1978's The Buddy Holly Story) adds one nice touch, however: casting real-life players as the movie's Knicks. The Indiana Pacers' lumbering journeyman center Dwayne Schintzius plays a Russian import able to speak limited English ("Ivan make basket" and "Yo, baby, want to see my room?"). Even better is Malik Sealy, the L.A. Clippers' smooth guard, who plays the Knicks' arrogant star—he never passes the ball and always refers to himself in the third person. With the help of such pros as Larry Johnson of Charlotte (N.C.), Gary Payton of Seattle, and the Bulls' attention-hungry Dennis Rodman, the movie effectively portrays the cynicism and pomposity of today's NBA. If only it were more successful at bringing out the humor of the situation. (PG-13)
Liv Tyler, Pruitt Taylor Vince
Good hearts are good things, and hard to find," muses a barfly in this delicately observed drama about the circumscribed lives of its smalltown characters. Two especially good-hearted souls, an overweight pizza chef (Vince, quietly affecting as a gentle, emotionally underdeveloped lug) and a young waitress (the sweetly tentative Tyler), are at the center of this Marty for the '90s. Moving at a slow, deliberate pace, Heavy tells the story of their growing friendship and the impact it has both on their lives and on those of their coworkers and pals at a dilapidated tavern. (The locale goes unspecified, though the movie was shot in Upstate New York.) The rest of the cast is also fine, including Shelley Winters, remarkably restrained as Vince's mom, Deborah Harry as a weathered waitress and rocker Evan Dando (of the Lemon-heads) as Tyler's beau. Heavy was clearly made on the cheap yet with obvious care and love. (Writer-director James Mangold won best direction for Heavy at 1995's Sundance Film Festival.) It's sweet without being saccharine. (Not rated)
>Cable Guys
FIGHTING WIRE WITH WIRE
LAST FALL, WHEN CABLE COMPANY executives started getting wind of Jim Carrey's forthcoming The Cable Guy, their antennae quivered with anxiety. Cable producer Andy Licht recalls his office receiving several fretful calls from cable lobbyists. 'They were concerned that it was going to be Ace Ventura III," he says, "just totally poking fun." Cruel fun, at that. In the comedy, opening this Friday (June 14), Carrey plays a cable installer who turns up four hours late for an appointment at the home of Matthew Broderick, then goes berserk and harasses him as only Carrey can. But folks in the cable industry have since discovered "spin," and now all is sunny Frank Capra cheer. They can't stop the film. So now the movie is "entertainment," says Torie Clarke, public-affairs vice president for the National Cable Television Association in Washington. "And that's what we do. It's a great opportunity to tell the public what a good job we've been doing."
To that end, the NCTA has sent 4,000 cable systems a Cable Guy campaign kit that includes order forms for buttons ("I'm the REAL Cable Guy. Ask me why") and a list of "Top 10 Answers to What Do You Think About The Cable Guy?" (No. 5: "The airline industry survived Leslie Nielsen; the telephone industry survived Lily Tomlin; we'll survive Jim Carrey.") In Gloucester, Va., employees of Gloucester Cablevision will collect tickets at the movie's opening night at a local theater. In St. Paul, Continental Cablevision hosted an Ultimate Cable Guy contest for its workers with such events as cable burying and service-van parking.
Cable Guy producer Licht favored one snazzy gimmick: Make June 14 Cable Amnesty Day. As Licht explains, "Anyone who had illegal cable could turn themselves in without any penalty." Nice try, but it didn't make the NCTA's packet.
- Contributors:
- Ralph Novak,
- Leah Rozen,
- Shelley Levitt.
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!
