This is a movie of surprises, all of them pleasant. The stars, Robert DeNiro and Robert Duvall, are two of the screen's most explosive actors. Not so here; this film, adapted from John Gregory Dunne's 1977 novel, is stunning, largely because DeNiro and Duvall (both memorable in The Godfather, Part II) so masterfully underplay their roles. The setting is Los Angeles in the late 1940s. DeNiro, an ambitious young Catholic priest, is wheeling and dealing his way up the church's local hierarchy. Duvall, all twitchy and full of restrained rage, is his older brother, a cop and the family black sheep. He is assigned to investigate the grisly murder of a young woman who was a porno movie actress. The victim turns out to have had connections with some unsavory characters who know his priestly brother. The movie, directed by Ulu {Straight Time) Grosbard and photographed by Owen Roizman, has a gauzy, almost dreamlike quality reminiscent of Roman Polanski's Chinatown. The script, by Dunne and his novelist wife, Joan Didion, also helps. It's beautifully structured, allowing DeNiro and Duvall to convey the tension that exists between two people who clearly love one another but don't quite know how to say it. (R)
Your Reaction
