Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, January 28, 1995 TAG: 9501310034
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: B12 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MAL VINCENT LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
No buses explode. The only explosion is an unseen and unheard one in a barracks in the Sinai desert, halfway around the world from the family we visit.
The trailer for the film makes it look like a TV-movie, replete with traumas and emotions. It is more. With the help of Deena Goldstone's script, based on Ellyn Bache's novel, it neatly sidesteps most of the pitfalls of such melodrama.
Susan Sarandon, with a face that is aging in an interesting way, plays the mother of seven sons. She was married at 18 and, according to her, ``didn't eat a dinner that I didn't have to cut up someone else's meat until I was 35.''
She's a pretty perfect mom but not in a stereotyped way. She's tough. She takes no mess from the kids or from her husband. She's now intent on branching out into a career of her own.
She's fierce in protecting her boys. When the youngest is attacked by a neighborhood dog, she takes on the pooch herself. When another son is injured on the playing field, she embarrasses him by carrying him off the field. As played by the determined Sarandon, it isn't as corny as it sounds. She deserves to receive her fourth Oscar nomination for this.
This family is not your Brady Bunch. In most ways, it is dysfunctional.
Dad, played by Sam Shepard (the award-winning playwright who lives in Charlottesville) in a rather noncommittal way, has been kicked out of the house. Apparently the last straw was the fact that he insisted on throwing his used tea bags into the sink. The couple are obviously still very much in love but things have just gotten out of hand.
When a TV news flash reveals the bombing in the Sinai, thoughts immediately turn to Percival, one of the family's twins and the son who was always most troubled. He left family pressures behind to join the Marines and is stationed in the Middle East. One by one the sons gather at home to wait for news. Is he a survivor or not?
Marcia Gay Harden, a veteran of Virginia Stage Company who starred as Ava Gardner in the TV miniseries ``Sinatra,'' has an unlikely turn as the surprisingly candid older girlfriend of Alfred, the oldest son - a stuffy type played by Robert Sean Leonard (``Dead Poet's Society,'' ``Much Ado About Nothing''). Sean Astin (``Rudy'') plays the family ``brain.'' Jason London, who scored in the highly underrated drama ``The Man in the Moon,'' plays the athletically gifted son. Nick Stahl (who co-starred with Mel Gibson in ``The Man Without a Face'') is the much-loved youngest.
There isn't a weak performance in the bunch.
Robert Allan Ackerman, one of the most noted Broadway stage directors, guides the actors deftly, but he reveals his stage background; the film is not as visual as it might be. Somehow, though, you'll find the straightforward, linear style of storytelling a refreshing change from all the frantic camera movements that other directors use.
There are few big laughs, but there is enough everyday, recognizable humor to offset the more intense onslaught of drama.
``Safe Passage'' deserves credit for trying what few other films will currently try - a family story about everyday folk told in a straightforward, no-nonsense manner. It deserves to be seen.
Safe Passage: ***1/2
A New Line Cinema release showing at the Salem Valley 8. Though rated PG-13 for some off-color language, this is essentially a '90s ``family'' movie.
by CNB