ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, September 7, 1996 TAG: 9609090114
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 10 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: MOVIE REVIEW
SOURCE: KATHERINE REED STAFF WRITER
There is always a certain heaviness to Robert Altman's movies, whether he's weighing in with a wry, unflinching view of Hollywood (``The Player'') or piecing together a film anthology of the work of Raymond Carver (``Short Cuts'').
Always, too, there has been humor in Altman's work. Of course, no one could read Carver's work and not give the laughs their due in any film based on his stories. But certainly "The Player," from a screenplay by Michael Tolkin, had its moments - many of them, in fact, as did "M*A*S*H" and "Nashville."
The trouble with Altman's newest film, "Kansas City," is that there are no breaks in the darkness, no contrasts to give richness to this period story, from a screenplay by Altman and Frank Barhydt. It is a relentlessly unhappy movie about a couple of days in the lives of a handful of interrelated characters, living in Kansas City sometime around 1935.
The trouble begins with a small-time crook named Johnny (Dermot Mulroney), who robs a black man named Sheepshan Red. Sheepshan, unfortunately for Johnny, is a close friend of one of the most powerful black men in Kansas City, a club owner named Seldon Seen (Harry Belafonte). When Sheepshan arrives at Seen's Hey-Hey Club without his stake, Seen takes it very personally. He is particularly offended that Sheepshan has apparently been robbed by a white man in black face.
In no time, Johnny is hauled into the club, where Seen tortures him with long, rambling speeches about how greedy white men are. Meanwhile, Johnny's loyal girlfriend, Blondie (Jennifer Jason Leigh), tracks Johnny to the Hey-Hey Club, where she makes an uncharming plea for his life.
When she's out on the street again - without her man - she gets it into her head to kidnap the wife of one of the most powerful men in town, Carolyn Stilton (Miranda Richardson), an opium addict. Leigh does her snappy dame talk (maybe you saw it in ``The Hudsucker Proxy'') while Richardson staggers around in a daze.
These are the "contrasts," such as they are: the scenes with Leigh and Richardson, going from place to place not actually talking to each other, and the scenes with Belafonte and Mulroney, sitting at the club not actually talking to each other.
Only the music - and it is amazing - breaks up the monotony of this dirge. Altman had the good sense to assemble some of the best jazz musicians around to play the musicians involved in a "Battle of the Bands" at the Hey-Hey Club.
Too bad he didn't pick up some of their energy. "Kansas City" could have used a healthy dose of it.
Kansas City **1/2
A Fine Line Features release playing at the Grandin Theatre. Rated R for violence and profanity. 115 minutes.
LENGTH: Medium: 62 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ``Kansas City'' director Robert Altman is pictured onby CNBhis set with jazz musicians from the movie. color.