A FINE SCRIPT MAKES `MAD DOG' ONE TO SAVOR

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

DATE: SATURDAY, March 6, 1993                   TAG: 9303060291
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: B12   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: CHRIS GLADDEN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
A FINE SCRIPT MAKES `MAD DOG' ONE TO SAVOR
"Mad Dog and Glory" is far sharper than its title would indicate. It's a thoroughly entertaining offbeat, urban romantic comedy with a dangerous undercurrent.
Everyone involved - from the top-flight cast to director John McNaughton - demonstrates a sure hand. But, more than anything else, the movie demonstrates the importance of that increasingly endangered species: a fine script.
Writer Richard Price, who wrote the well-received novel "Clockers," provides the screenplay. Price also wrote the terrific screenplay for "The Color of Money," and he brings that same gritty, tough dialogue to this one.
The unlikely hero of the story is Wayne Dobie, ironically nicknamed "Mad Dog." Wayne, played engagingly by Robert De Niro, is a crime scene technician on the Chicago police force, and he's an unlikely cop. He admits that he over-reacted to his father's shopkeeper's existence when he joined the force. Wayne is decent, well-meaning and sensitive: Though he takes crime photos, he aspires to be a real artist. Wayne is also a mild-mannered, lonely guy with little self-confidence who agonizes over what he feels is his lack of physical courage.
Not so Frank Milo, the guy Wayne rescues during a store stick-up. Frank is so reckless that he spits in the face of the drug-crazed punk holding him at gun point. Frank is a gangster by profession, but like Wayne, he's not a stereotype. Frank is in therapy, trying to deal with his machismo, and he's also a stand-up comic in his own club.
Bill Murray is on a roll in the first months of this year, turning out two of the best performances of his career in this movie and in "Groundhog Day." His hip, free-wheeling sense of humor is at work here; but Murray also gives Frank a scary and dangerous dimension. Frank can break bad at any time.
Out of gratitude, the gangster sends the cop a woman that he for all intents and purposes owns. Glory has put herself into bondage to pay off a debt her brother owes Frank. She's to stay with the lonely, celibate Wayne for a week. Wayne's not keen on the idea, but he goes along with the arrangement. Uma Thurman plays Glory in a role far more normal than the kind of exotic, mysterious women she usually plays.
There are also a couple of scene-stealing supporting performances. They come from David Caruso as Wayne's tough, impetuous fellow cop; and Mike Starr,who plays one of Frank's henchmen.
Under McNaughton's direction, "Mad Dog and Glory" is kind of an oddity, a film noir romantic comedy. But it's an oddity to be savored.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB