ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, March 23, 1996 TAG: 9603250107
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: B-7 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: MOVIE REVIEW
SOURCE: MIKE MAYO CORRESPONDENT
Stated simply, the basic message of ``Diabolique'' is: ``Men are scum.''
And though this remake of a 1955 French thriller is something of a muddled mess, its case is persuasive. Chazz Palminteri has created one of the most delightfully despicable villains of recent years. Arrayed against him are one weak sister and two formidable females.
Guy Baran (Palminteri) is the overbearing headmaster of a boys school in rural Pennsylvania. He treats the kids like dirt and carries on an affair with Nicole (Sharon Stone), the math teacher, without trying to hide it from his faint-hearted wife Mia (Isabelle Adjani). She actually owns the school, and when he goes too far, the two women decide to kill him.
Later, Shirley (Kathy Bates), a curious and persistent detective, worms her way into the proceedings. To reveal much more would spoil what fun there is to be had.
Seen as a horror-thriller, the film is successful about 70 percent of the time. Director Jeremiah Chechik establishes a dark Gothic mood with supersaturated colors - most notably the reds surrounding Nicole - and the oppressive school itself made of massive buildings overgrown with vegetation. In the key scenes, Chechik takes his cue from the master and manages to create some genuinely Hitchcockian tension. The characters are strong, too, though Stone's toughness verges on caricature.
Curiously, the film is much weaker when it comes to the simple mechanics of the genre. Some key clues and plot developments in Don Roos' script are so poorly defined that they're needlessly confusing. The psychological motivations that are finally revealed won't stand up to any analysis, either.
Those criticisms won't mean much to the right audiences. Perhaps those who think "Fatal Attraction," "Basic Instinct" and all the other misogynistic thrillers need rebuttal will champion this one.
Diabolique **1/2
A Warner Bros. release playing at the Cinema USA at Crossroads and Salem Valley 8 Theaters. 105 minutes. Rated R for subject matter, violence, sexual content, brief nudity.
LENGTH: Short : 48 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Sharon Stone (left) and Isabelle Adjani plot to kill theby CNBman in their lives in ``Diabolique.''