Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 25, 1992 TAG: 9203250229
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Mike Mayo
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
\ "Timebomb" is the most enjoyable of the lot. It's a tricky sci-fi suspense story, the kind of thing that Dean R. Koontz and Stephen King handle so well in fiction. Though it slips from time to time, the pace is quick, and the plot takes enough unexpected twists to smooth over the rough stretches.
Eddy Kay (Michael Biehn) lives an ordinary life as a watchmaker. But that changes when he rescues a woman and her baby from a burning building. His heroism is captured on the local TV news, bringing him to the attention of a shady government type (Richard Jordan). Before long he's the target of a team of assassins, led by Tracy Scoggins doing a grand turn as a Dragon Lady. At the same time, he begins to suffer from hallucinations so vivid that they lead him to a psychiatrist, Dr. Nolmar (Patsy Kensit).
Then he realizes that he can speak and understand Hungarian.
Viewers familiar with the structure that Koontz and King employ probably will figure out some of the surprises before they should. Director Avi Nesher gives away some things too soon. But he has a sense of visual playfulness, which raises the production above the usual shoot-'em-up level.
Judged by just about any standard you care to apply, "Timebomb" is as good as most films that come through the theaters every week. If this one hadn't gotten mixed up in the financial problems of MGM/UA and the De Laurentiis studio, it might have done well on the big screen. (By the way, comedienne Julie Brown makes an uncredited appearance as a waitress.)
\ "A Soldier's Tale" is much more serious.
It begins as a standard World War II adventure. The setting is Normandy, July 1944. Sargeant Saul Scorby (Gabriel Byrne) leads a squad of British infantrymen against the Germans. During a lull in the advance, he finds a farm house where a beautiful young woman, Isabelle (Marianne Basler), is living by herself.
Almost immediately, a small group of French Resistance fighters shows up. Having already tried and convicted Isabelle of collaboration, they demand that she come with them. For the basest of reasons, Saul offers to protect her. He threatens the French and drives them to the edge of the property. Then he moves into the farm house for the weekend.
What follows is really a story about morality and moral choices. Writer/director Larry Parr makes some good points about fear, innocence and the realities of occupation and collaboration. They're not clear-cut matters of black-and-white. To judge them as such is unfair, but, perhaps, unavoidable.
The pace could be quicker, though the French countryside is captured so lovingly that's not a serious problem. Neither are the inaccuracies in period details. Byrne turns in his usual intense performance, and Marianne Basler looks like a young Brigitte Bardot. In the end, the film is intriguingly different; different in a good sense. "A Soldier's Tale" is due in stores April 23.
\ "Love and Murder" is a Canadian import. It's a low-octane mystery about a photographer (Todd Warring) who accidentally photographs a woman's death. The act involves him and his girlfriend (Kathleen Lasky) with a serial murderer.
That part of the plot is cliched, but writer/director Steven Stern was ambitious. At various times, the film is supposed to be a suspense story, a realistic character study and a comedy. To Stern's credit, the two protagonists are believable, and even interesting . . . for a time.
The combination of photography and murder is an obvious and crude knock-off of Hitchcock's "Rear Window." Even in the action scenes, the pace is dreary, and far too much time is devoted to long, static dialogue scenes, an obvious and accurate knock-off of bad Woody Allen.
THE ESSENTIALS
Timebomb *** MGM/UA. 96 min. Rated R for graphic violence, strong language, nudity, sexual content.
A Soldier's Tale **1/2 Republic. 96 min. Rated R for violence, subject matter, brief nudity.
Love and Murder * Coyote Home Video. 87 min. Rated R for subject matter, strong language.
New releases this week:
Livin' Large: ** Stars Terrence "T.C." Carson. Warner. 93 min. Rated R for strong language, mild sexual content.
Here's a low-budget comedy of a few hits and many misses about an ambitious kid from an Atlanta housing project who becomes a local TV news star. He gets his chance, but under the pressures of stardom he's tempted to sell out his old friends.
The Super: **1/2 Stars Joe Pesci. Foxvideo. 85 min. Rated R for very strong language.
This amiable little comedy is saved from complete predictability by another energetic Joe Pesci performance. He plays a slumlord who's sentenced to 120 days in his own hellish building. The pace is quick, the humor is often stereotyped but the movie is still good for a few laughs.
Paradise:* Stars Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith. Buena Vista. 110 min. Rated PG-13 for brief nudity, mild language.
"Paradise" is meant to be a poignant, warmly humorous coming-of-age story set in the South, but there's not a single honest emotion or laugh to be found. It drips with insincerity, or perhaps incompetence. The stars muddle through but the child actors are asked to deliver lines that no kid would ever say.
Ramblin' Rose: ***1/2 Stars Laura Dern, Diane Ladd, Lucas Hass, Robert
Duvall. Directed by Martha Coolidge, LIVE. Rated R. 120 minutes.
Flavorful comedy-drama based on Calder Willingham's novel about the effect a promiscuous servant girl has on a Southern family. Nice tone, literate script and fine performances from the cast.
The Fisher King: ***1/2 Stars Jeff Bridges, Robin Williams. Directed by
Terry Gilliam, Columbia Tristar. Rated R. 130 minutes.
Gilliam's inventive reworking of an ancient legend that emerges in the Arthurian cycle. Bridges plays a DJ who blames himself for a mass murder, and Williams plays an emotionally wounded street person in this story of redemption.
Shattered: **1/2 Stars Tom Berenger, Greta Scacchi, Bob Hoskins. Directed
by Wolfgang Petersen, Warner. Rated R. 105 minutes.
A wildly improbable thriller that delivers fun. Berenger plays Dan Merrick, a successful developer and architect who plummets over a cliff in his car and comes to with a horribly disfigured face and no memory.
by CNB