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B/CYCLE JIM'S
Introduces
NEW CARRY OUT MENU
ARTS
Friday, March 20, 1981
The Michigan Daily
Page 6
Seeing is
believing.
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'Eyewitness'
characters shine as plot fades
libido.
It's a pleasure to report that Weaver
looks just as ravishing on terra firma as
in outlying galaxies, that she's every bit
as gifted a thespian, that her Eyewit-
ness protagonist is just as independent
as her cosmic predecessor, if a bit less
of a take-charge type. It would have
been nice to report that Eyewitness was
a vehicle fully worthy of her and co-star
William Hurt's talents; indeed, for
much of its running time, the film, is
Sokolow (Weaver), whom Daryll-
records with loving religiosity on his
Betamax.
When Daryll discovers the murdered
body of his boss, a Vietnamese diamond
importer, he craftily pretends to know
more about the murder than he really
does: thus does he snare a meeting with
the girl of his dreams. Tony plays along
with Daryll's infatuation, hoping to get
to the bottom of a killing to which there
is clearly more than meets the eye.
Na
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SIGOURNEY WEAVER (right), a glamorous television reporter, films an
interview with William Hurt, the suspected witness to a' murder who is soon
to become her lover, in "Eyewitness."
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an engrossing and endearing mystery-
love story - so' much so that when it
eventually, begins to, fall apart, ,the
feeling is akin to being metaphorically
stabbed in the back.
DARYLL DEAVER (Hurt) is a night
janitor at a large office building in New
York. A laconic, ex-Vietnam veteran,
he pursues a simple, compact lifestyle
interrupted by a lone eccentricity - an
obsession with TV newscaster Tony
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Predictably, their mutual conniving
blooms into true love. Yet. neither fully
realizes the deadly peril eaebh has
thrown the other into through their
unlikely alliance. Menace hovers onf all
sides: Daryll's erratic, half-crazed ex'
Nam pal Aldo (James Woods) appears
capable of any atrocity; a suave Israeli
diplomat-agent (Christopher Plumn-
mer) seems a candidate for political
sainthood (and for Tony's hand in
marriage), yet exhibits a fanatic's un-
derside; the henchmen of the murdered
Viet gangster silently prowl the New
York streets, coldly stalking our
protagonists.
DIRECTOR YATES and screen-
writer Steve Tesich have counterbalan-
ced the sunlit, small-town triumphof
Breaking Away with a cinematic ode to
night and the city. They build their
movie with masterly patience,
wringing every last jitter out of the
shadowed recesses of each dark corner.
As Daryll and Tony come to know and
love each other, they grow into immen-
sely likable heroes; the viewer soon
feels a personal stake in extracting
these decent folks from the inexorable
web of doom which draws even tighten
about them.
Contrary to many thrillers, it's
Eyewitness's plot which ultimately
fails its characterizations. Yates and
Tesich draw the bowstrings of tension
so taut over the film's first hour that
they fail utterly to come up with a
See 'EYEWITNESS,' Page 7
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