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

DATE: FRIDAY, April 21, 1995                   TAG: 9504210075
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: TOM SHALES
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

TALE OF TWO MOVIES - ONE GOOD, ONE BAD

Producers may have raised enough money to finish a film, but then can't make a deal for its distribution. It can cost $6 million and up, way up, to launch a movie and mount an advertising campaign. So some films go to cable or home video, where they might recoup some of their costs.

Of course, sometimes the reason there's no theatrical distribution is that the movie is just plain lousy. That's the case with ``New Eden,'' a 1994 film premiering Saturday night on cable's inventive Sci-Fi Channel. The film has two big-league stars, Stephen Baldwin and Lisa Bonet, but a lame story and sluggish pace.

Across town, however, on HBO, on the same night, another '94 film that never made it to theaters shows up and proves provocatively entertaining: ``Frank & Jesse,'' the umpteenth retelling of the James Brothers' legend, stars Bill Paxton as temperate brother Frank and Rob Lowe as hothead brother Jesse.

``Frank & Jesse'' is a better Western than ``Maverick,'' which did make it to theaters last year and chugged down a ton of money. But another big Western, ``Wyatt Earp,'' bombed badly in theaters and lost a fortune, and so it was probably thought ``Frank & Jesse'' stood little chance of striking gold.

All these pesky economics aside, ``Frank & Jesse'' has much to recommend it. Lowe is never quite convincing in macho roles - he's better off playing spoofy goofs as he did in ``Wayne's World'' - but Paxton, one of the most versatile and underpraised actors around, does an outstanding job as Frank James. Frank is portrayed here as a levelheaded lad forced into a life of crime by ruthless railroad barons gobbling up land.

Like many a movie these days, this one is partly about media and myth-making. The brothers follow their own exploits in the press as they knock over banks and become heroes. A reporter for the Chicago Tribune becomes their advocate as well as their chronicler. Frank is shown as keenly aware of public opinion: ``If we lose the people, we lose everything,'' he says.

And he has a strict code of crime. A train passenger with weather-beaten hands is told to keep his wallet because ``we don't take money from the workin' man.'' Frank also insists on ``no unnecessary bloodshed'' during heists, but this advice is frequently ignored by brother Jesse and other gang members. The movie wasn't submitted for a rating but would probably get an R for graphic violence.

Randy Travis, the country singer, plays Cole Younger, another member of the gang, and affectingly sings ``Auld Lang Syne'' at a pivotal and poignant moment. He pronounces it ``Ol' Dang Zein'' but still does a pretty good job. The picture was shot in Arkansas and, intentionally or not, includes some of the bleakest scenery ever seen.

An HBO spokesman says ``Frank & Jesse'' came so close to theatrical distribution that preview trailers for it ran in theaters last summer. It was ``coming soon'' but never came, until now. The movie has echoes of many other Westerns, including ``Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid'' and ``Jesse James,'' the '40s classic with Tyrone Power in the title role, but it stands on its own as a watchable and worthwhile piece of work.

That can't be said for ``New Eden,'' the Sci-Fi Channel acquisition set in the year 2237. Baldwin plays a political prisoner guilty of a ``thought crime'' who is sent to a desolate planet that serves as a penal colony. There he meets the beautiful-as-ever Bonet and together they try to plant vegetables. But an evil band of Sand Pirates - who look just like the hooligans in the ``Road Warrior'' movies - keeps raiding the garden.

Baldwin's character is called Adams, but Bonet is Lily, not Eve. There are also Cain and Abel figures, sort of, named Kyne and Ares. The movie is a confused mess; Adams is supposed to be an idealistic pacifist, but his salvation comes when he learns how to blow people away with a big gun. A love scene between the two stars reveals them both to be good kissers, but it's accompanied by weird music that sounds like the last moo's of a dying cow.

In other words, though ``Frank & Jesse'' qualifies as a pleasure deferred, ``New Eden'' should probably have been deferred forever.

Washington Post Writers Group