`MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO' IS OFF-THE-WALL SHAKESPEARE

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, January 25, 1992                   TAG: 9201250307
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: EXTRA 2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: CHRIS GLADDEN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
`MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO' IS OFF-THE-WALL SHAKESPEARE
You have to give filmmaker Gus Van Sant credit for audacity.
Of all the strange approaches to Shakespeare, "My Own Private Idaho" could be the strangest - and that includes Peter Greenaway's baroque "Prospero's Books."
Van Sant takes elements from "Henry IV," combines them with his own idiosyncratic visions and sets them among the sordid world of male hustlers in contemporary Seattle.
The result is a flawed but original movie - a "Midnight Cowboy" for the '90s - that contains moments of bizarre humor, stark visuals and an unflinchingly lurid look at its subject matter.
It's a departure from the kind of street-wise realism that distinguishes Van Sant's "Drugstore Cowboy."
Some of the dialogue is lifted straight from Shakespeare, and Van Sant incorporates a lot of surrealistic touches from the bizarre characters who patronize the male prostitutes to the weird look he gives the wide-open spaces of the Northwest.
River Phoenix plays Mike, a narcoleptic hooker who has a tendency to zonk out right in the middle of the road any time he's traveling around. Mike is the product of an incestuous relationship between his brother and his mother. Emotionally wounded, denied any reasonable facsimile of a normal past and left vulnerable by his medical condition, Mike is a pretty pathetic character.
Keanu Reeves plays Scott Favor, the Prince Hal character. The son of the city's wealthy mayor, Scott rebels against his background by peddling his body on the streets. He befriends and protects Mike, who falls in love with him. But Scott doesn't reciprocate. He's fully aware of his social position, and he knows he will have to give up his dissolute lifestyle in the near future. Money and power are his destiny, and his time on the streets is just a diversion.
Which leads to the Falstaff character, Bob Pigeon, played robustly by filmmaker William Richert. Bob is the legendary leader of the street hustlers, a rotund, grubby con man who inspires devotion in his rag-tag followers.
Ultimately, Scott will have to betray Bob and forsake Mike. But before he does so, he accompanies Mike on a quest to Italy in search of the incestuous mother who is only seen in home-movie style flashback.
Obviously, this isn't mainstream stuff, and Van Sant doesn't always combine the classical elements with the street atmosphere successfully. But the movie is so off-the-wall, it's impossible to be disinterested despite the rather blank characterizations from Phoenix and Reeves and the overall artiness.

`My Own Private Idaho': 1/2
A Fineline feature at the Grandin Theatre (345-6177). Rated R for language and strong sexual content; 100 minutes.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB