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

DATE: FRIDAY, July 1, 1994                   TAG: 9407020022
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: METRO  
SOURCE: KATHERINE REED STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

THE TROUBLE WITH 'TROUBLE' IS GREAT

Maybe it's the mouth - the nutcracker grin that some people find irresistible. Maybe it's the alleged 36-inch inseam; that's a lotta leg.

Whatever it is that has made Julia Roberts a phenomenon remains a mystery to me - a bigger mystery than the weak, unoriginal one driving her new movie, "I Love Trouble," also starring the always able Nick Nolte.

It's not that she completely lacks charm; there is a certain, kooky cuteness about her. But a little of it goes a long way, and in this film - about two, competing Chicago newspaper reporters on the trail of a hot story - there is way too much of her to ignore her lack of dramatic range.

As Sabrina Peterson, Roberts is supposed to be a hard-nosed, rookie reporter digging into the derailment of a Chicago commuter train. Also on the scene of the fatal crash is once hard-nosed veteran reporter Peter Brackett (Nolte), who is now a skirt-chasing celebrity columnist at the prestigious Chicago Chronicle (obviously meant to be the Chicago Tribune).

Brackett would rather be off signing copies of his new novel on a publicity tour, until he gets a gander (wailing sax in the background) at Peterson's gams. She takes an instant dislike for him, cuts him to the quick, and a love story is born.

She keeps beating Brackett on the story, and after a hair-raising elevator trip together in which they might have been KILLED if Brackett weren't so hunky and STRONG, they decide to join forces (yeah, right) to get the story and stay alive.

And trade lots of not-so-snappy repartee.

That's the big trouble with this movie: Producer Nancy Meyers and director Charles Shyer seem to have had in mind a kind of Hitchcock-esque thriller with some interesting sexual tension between the two, principal characters. The thriller aspect of this tale is less than thrilling; isn't there some way around the microfilm in the briefcase cliche? And Nolte and Roberts don't exactly spark on each other, although we are provided with numerous, tight shots of Roberts' various, attractive body parts, which are supposed to substitute as evidence of real sexual chemistry.

If you love Julia Roberts, then none of this matters much at all. If you don't, stay away from "Trouble."

I LOVE TROUBLE: **

A Touchstone Pictures release, showing at Valley View Mall 6. 130 minutes, rated PG.

by CNB