ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, September 21, 1996 TAG: 9609230102
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: B12 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: MOVIE REVIEW
SOURCE: DESSON HOWE THE WASHINGTON POST
If there's a point to ``Feeling Minnesota,'' it must have fallen on the cutting-room floor somewhere. This love-on-the-run affair between Keanu Reeves and Cameron Diaz, with Vincent D'Onofrio playing romantic spoiler, stumbles mindlessly in all directions.
The movie, written and directed by first-timer Steven Baigelman, acts as if it's heading somewhere. There's a plethora of apparently hip business: The characters are offbeat, quirky archetypes - the kind we've long since tired of watching in the movies of Quentin Tarantino and all his imitators. The story twists are plentiful. The dialogue is packed with smugly knowing irony. And another romance-noir banality passes us by.
Jjaks (Reeves) and Sam (D'Onofrio - the psychotic suicide in ``Full Metal Jacket'') are Minnesota brothers who have squabbled for years. After an estranged absence, Jjaks attends Sam's wedding. The bride, Freddie (Diaz), who immediately establishes sexy eye contact with Jjaks, clearly has no interest in marrying her oafish, tacky fianc. It turns out, Freddie's getting hitched to honor bad debts to local hood Red (Delroy Lindo). Seems Freddie stole from Red; and the wedding is Red's idea of humorous payback.
Moments after the vows, Jjaks (whose name - yuk, yuk - is the result of a typo on his birth certificate) and his new sister-in-law are getting it on behind closed doors. Jjaks, a loner who's been in trouble with the law for most of his life, tries to leave the ceremony. But his mother (Tuesday Weld) dies. Staying for the funeral, he's easy prey for Freddie, who'll stop at nothing to remain his lover. In love with Freddie, he pulls up at Sam's house and takes her away. But the real trouble happens when Freddie urges Jjaks to go back to Sam's and take his money.
Unfortunately, the best part is over. If things were already going steadily downhill, they go into full-throttle descent here. Reeves is likable in his duuh cute-boy manner, and D'Onofrio has a talent for being disreputably amusing. But Baigelman piles up a tedious, unending array of double-crosses, triple-crosses, gun faceoffs and fist battles (mostly between the brothers). Complications occur, it seems, simply for the sake of complications.
As for the other characters - including Dan Aykroyd as a hick cop and Courtney Love as a sympathetic waitress - they show up, play their parts and have little impact on the story.
This lackluster effort doesn't reflect well on the Sundance Institute, Robert Redford's spawning ground for independent movies, which coproduced the film. It makes you want to look to Hollywood again for original movies.
Feeling Minnesota *1/2
A Fineline release playing at The Grandin Theatre. Rated R for sexual situations, violence, profanity and nudity. 95 minutes.
LENGTH: Medium: 58 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Dan Aykroyd (center) plays a cop, and Keanu Reevesby CNB(left) a loner on the run in ``Feeling Minnesota.''