'Marvin's Room'

'Donnie Brasco'

Rated PG 13

Rated R

W

ith three Academy trating given all the misery that
Award-winning actors, Marvin's Room packs into two
two Broadway legends hours. Acclaimed stage director
and a script brimming Jerry Zaks (A Funny Thing
with the deepest questions of Happened on the Way to the Fo-
life, love and family, Marvin's rum), making his behind-the-
Room has "great movie" written camera debut, elicits first-rate
all over it. The fact that it leaves performances from his cast —
that potential unfulfilled is the including an Oscar-nominated
saddest part of an already de- turn from Diane Keaton — an
pressive film.
especially amazing trick given
Twenty years ago, sisters Lee the hollowness of the characters.
(Meryl Streep) and Bessie (Di-
Despite all of the emotional
ane Keaton) went their separate and physical turmoil each faces,
ways. Bessie moved to Florida the characters never evolve and
to care for her eccentric
strangely enough, never
aunt (Gwen Verdon)
connect, even as the film
MOVIES
and bedridden father
draws to a close.
(Hume Cronyn). Lee
The late Scott McPher-
escaped to Ohio, raising her two son, who wrote both the screen-
sons, Hank and Charlie, alone. play and original stage play,
Hank (Leonardo DiCaprio), with teases us with tantalizing
his penchant for delinquent be- glimpses into the lives of Lee,
havior, has landed in a mental Bessie, Hank and the others, but
institution, desperate for his errs in denying us the pleasure
mother's love and approval. The and privilege of seeing into and
two sisters struggle on their sharing their emotional journey.
own, never speaking, until
It is difficult to dislike a movie
Bessie is diagnosed with which tries so hard, but in the
leukemia.
end, that's what makes it so dis-
Persuaded by Dr. Wally (pro- appointing. For all of its star
ducer Robert DeNiro), Bessie power and good intentions, Mar-
contacts Lee, who, along with vin's Room still feels empty.
her two sons, is Bessie's only
hope for a bone marrow trans-
plant and, thus, survival..
410A`
The lack of emotion the audi-
ence feels is all the more frus-
— Liz Lent

Liz Lent is an avid moviegoer.

Hume Cronyn with Diane Keaton, Best
Actress nominee, in Jerry Zaks' Marvin's

PHOTO BY PHIL CARU SO

Room.

T

hey say that
truth can be
stranger than
fiction, but
that doesn't neces-
sarily mean that it
makes for better
movie watching.
Case in point:
Donnie Brasco, from
director Mike-
Newell (Four Wed-
dings and a Funer-
al). Based on the
book by Joseph Pis-
tone, the film re-
counts the true life
experiences of an
FBI agent who
spent several years
undercover, slowly
infiltrating the hier- The boys from Brasco: Al Pacino, James Russo, Bruno Kirby, Michael Madsen and Johnny
archy of a New York Depp.
mob "family" while
While the movie explores the ongoing opera-
his real family abscessed in his absence.
tion
and its effects on the "families" involved, the
Johnny Depp and Al Pacino share top billing
as the title character and his wise guy mentor, essence of the story involves the conflict wrought
respectively. "Depp and Pacino?" you ask with by Brasco's divergent loyalties.
So how can a story featuring undercover
skepticism. Given Depp's affinity for playing
agents,
organized crime, good guys, bad guys and
feather-light oddballs (remember Edward Scis-
sorhands and Don Juan DeMarco?), one might Al Pacino go wrong? Actually, it doesn't go wrong
legitimately question whether he could carry the — it just kind of goes. Many a film has been cri-
icized for being too uneven; Donnie Brasco
freight opposite a heavyweight like Pa-
has the opposite problem: It's too even. The
cino.
MOVIES
mood rarely swings, the pacing mostly
The answer is a resounding "sort of."
paces.
Depp has come a long way since his "21
For a story that could really hum — why is it
Jump Street" days and does an adequate job por-
so
ho-hum? I suppose the blame rests on the
traying Brasco, a man who is so immersed in his
mission that he has difficulty separating the role screenwriter and director, who apparently relied
from reality. Though he doesn't have the arse- on the subject matter's inherent intrigue to the
nal to match Pacino blow for blow, he does have exclusion of developing a script that equals the
material.
the stamina to go the distance.
Is it just because real mobsters aren't as in-
Pacino, meanwhile,
teresting
as those in The Godfather or Goodfel-
revisits familiar terri-
tory as Lefty, the mid- las? Doubtful. So where was Martin Scorsese
dle-management when we needed him?
mobster who is duped
into vouching for Bras-
co and getting him in-
side the organization.

Richard Halprin
moonlights at the movies.

— Richard Halprin

Bagel Barometer
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