MOVIES from page 109

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Reviewed by David Elliott

1

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10/3
1997

110

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V a nZE

and unbonding under condi-
tions so extreme we wish that
Bob would switch off his
Mamet button and simply get
with Charles' program, so sane,
so unflustered, so necessary.
That plunge into the forest
primeval comes off as Jack
London gone trendy, on a bud-
get binge. Most viewers will
remember the bear attacks (a
real bear was used) as aggressive
and slobbering as those in The
Bear. You may yearn for good
old Baloo from The Jungle Book
singing "The Bare Necessities."
The sturdy direction by Lee
Tamahori (Once Were Warriors) is
braced by Donald McAlpine's awe-
some, rock-ribbed photography of
peaks, woods, waterfalls. The story's
suspense is effective, but too talky,
without the astounding adrenaline
drive of Jaws or the spooky poetry of
Track of the Cat.
The edge in The Edge isn't the ser-
rated cool.of Mamet's writing, but the
almost transcendent gravity of
Hopkins' performance. He peels off
the skin of aging boredom to reveal a
buckskin soul, tough and leathery.
Damn, bring him back for Make Mine
Venison, and Make It Snappy. Rated R.
* * 1/2

8

KICKED IN THE HEAD

A nonstarter that just keeps on not
starting, Kicked in the Head shows
how the current monsoon of "indie"
cinema can sometimes be a drip.
Little more than a frisky casting call
for actors, the film was executive-pro-
duced by Martin Scorsese. As much as
we appreciate Scorsese for being the
Medici pope of new talent, couldn't he
serve better by showing more discrimi-
nation? As a calling card for comers,
this one makes Scorsese's Who's That
Knocking at My Door? (1968) seem
Michelangelesque.
Kevin Corrigan, who scripted with
director Matthew Harrison, flits and
babbles around New York's Lower East
Side as Redmond, on "a spiritual
search." That is, he scribbles mindless-
ly in a notebook. Not only is there
doggerel, but a cute dog on the loose.
And a scrappy conniver, Redmond's
deliriously low-rent Uncle Sammy
(James Woods, doing a sub-Runyon
costume spin, with a mouth for
motor).
Redmond, enacted by Corrigan like
a puerile spinoff of the young Alan
Arkin, fumbles into the stash of

James Woods and Kevin Corrigan in a
scene from Kicked in the Head.
Sammy's drug deal (nothing like
cocaine for boosting a comedy). Soon,
coke is being snorted, and thugs are
spraying hot lead without hitting any-
one (too nonsensical to be funny).
Burt Young flaps his sagging pizza
jowls as a hood who tells bad jokes,
badly. Michael Rapaport, as a hustler,
is a blitz of attitude and yap. Lili
Taylor is Redmond's sweet, cloying
girlfriend (Taylor at full speed can be
too much; at quarter-speed, she is
barely visible).
Most strikingly superficial is Linda
Fiorentino as a caustic flight atten-
dant. Fiorentino opens with her trade-
mark greeting (the one that starts with
"f" and ends with "u"). Of course, she
sleeps in a benign snooze with the
frantically grateful Redmond, because
"I'm always getting involved with boys
who are in trouble."
It extends aimlessly to a tender love
moment, right after a throw-up in an
airport john. Of course, we also hear a
piece of the old Dean Martin saloon
song ("Ain't that a kick in the head,"
etc.). And we stay vaguely impressed
(and puzzled) by the casting. Years
ago, Pauline Kael dismissed a new film
(one of some prestige, Altman's
Brewster McCloud), as being like
watching people just stand around
waiting for the script to arrive. Kicked
in the Head has a worse problem. The
script arrived. Unrated. *

Reviewed by David Elliott

THE PEACEMAKER

All of its hyperbolic hardware can-
not rescue The Peacemaker from being
old-fashioned — a throwback not just
to Cold War escapades, but to foreign
intrigue films and Hitchcock thrillers
before the Cold War.
Maybe the dreamers of
DreamWorks SKG (Steven Spielberg,
Jeffrey Katzenberg, David Geffen)
wanted something so familiar and
basic for their new company's first big
feature release. About the only ele-