TOO BAD, `AMOS & ANDREW' COULD HAVE BEEN FUNNY

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

DATE: SATURDAY, March 6, 1993                   TAG: 9303060260
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: B6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MIKE MAYO CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
TOO BAD, `AMOS & ANDREW' COULD HAVE BEEN FUNNY
Even under the best of circumstances, "Amos & Andrew" would be a negligible little movie. But with the situation in Waco, Texas, it's virtually impossible to find any humor in heavily armed police surrounding and storming a house.
That's not the central idea of the film, but it overshadows everything else. The real subject here is racial prejudice, and in attempting to make fun of it, writer-director Max Frye manages to insult just about everybody.
Andrew Sterling (Samuel L. Jackson) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning black writer who's spending his first night in a new vacation home on an exclusive island. He knows no one there. When two neighbors (Michael Lerner and Margaret Colin) look through his window and see him hooking up his stereo, they assume that he's a thief. They call the police.
Tolliver, the politically ambitious chief (Dabney Coleman), makes the same mistake. Only after his men have botched their first contact with Sterling does he realize what's happened. To avoid a public relations disaster, he turns to a petty crook locked up in his jail. Andrew O'Dell (Nicolas Cage) agrees to pretend to hold Sterling hostage, so that Tolliver can "save" the famous homeowner.
That could be the basis for a good comedy, but Frye's script never exploits it. Instead, the story bogs down in long speeches and needless subplots. In several places, the action stops dead while Amos or Andrew tells a long story about his past. Frye's swipes at opportunistic TV newspeople and stupid policemen are stale and half-hearted, and a minister clearly based on Al Sharpton is the most ham-fisted stereotype to hit the screen in years.
Of course, before it's over, the film has become a standard "buddy" picture, with the protagonists realizing that despite their differences they're really a lot alike, etc. But Jackson and Cage have such thin material to work with that their performances seem forced and stilted. They're so lifeless that a hyperactive German shepherd steals the movie from them.
The real problem with "Amos & Andrew" is that it simply isn't funny. The film is slow and pointless, and in the end, it has nothing new to say about racial attitudes. There is a good comedy to be made on the subject, but this isn't it.
AMOS & ANDREW: * A Columbia release playing at the Salem Valley 8. 92 min. Rated PG-13 for strong language, mild violence and some sexual humor.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB