THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, August 22, 1994 TAG: 9408200064
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E3 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Movie Review
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, MOVIE CRITIC
LENGTH: Medium: 92 lines
ROUND UP THE usual suspects.
In Agatha Christie style, all the ``maybes'' in the whodunit are gathered in the same room. There are five of them, and they are all psychiatric patients. One of them has murdered the therapy group's psychiatrist (Scott Bakula). One of them is also threatening the life of the substitute shrink (Bruce Willis).
The ingredients of a fun whodunit are here, but ``Color of Money'' is such a silly and eventually implausible thriller that it becomes more laughable than puzzling. About the only thing you can say for it is that it does play fair - one of the five suspects did indeed do it.
``Color of Money'' arrives with an overabundance of supposed controversy because its NC-17 rating sparked a debate with the director (the usually gifted Richard Rush), who was eventually forced to cut enough nudity to get an R rating. In spite of leading lady Jane March's frequent state of undress, voyeurs who buy tickets may well demand group refunds. There may be steam, but it's not very hot.
Willis, who works hard but can never quite convince us that he is a serious psychiatrist, plays Dr. Bill Capa, who sinks into depression when one of his patients jumps out the window of his New York skyscraper office. In his shock, he can no longer see the color red. (In a ripoff of Hitchcock's ``Vertigo,'' his incapacity shows up later when he's chased by a red sports car.)
In an effort to get his head back together, the doctor rushes to sunny Los Angeles to visit his old friend, Dr. Bob Moore (played by Scott Bakula, who is trying to make the crossover from TV). Bakula is violently murdered in his office, and it is suspected that the murderer is one of the members of his Monday night therapy group.
Bruce takes on the sessions in an effort to figure out who did it.
The group fits niftily into every nutty cliche of Hollywood mental disorder. There's a giggly nymphomaniac (played to silly excess by Lesley Ann Warren). There's the gender-confused Ritchie, who wants to be a woman. There's an ex-cop (played by Lance Henriksen) who is traumatized by the murder of his wife and daughter. There's the fussy lawyer, an obsessive compulsive (played by Brad Dourif, an Oscar nominee for ``One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest''). There's the rich, spoiled artist with kinky tastes (played by Kevin J. O'Connor).
None of them, however, is quite as confused as the psychiatrist himself. Poor Bruce, who is so entertaining when he's an irreverent wisecracker, tries mightily to play it serious here. He even wears glasses for some scenes. Just as often, he wears nothing at all.
Moving into the dead doctor's modernistic seaside villa, Willis strikes up a torrid affair with a little nymphet he meets when she bangs into the rear of his auto with her uninsured vehicle. March, the skinny English model with the buck teeth, has the role of Rose, the mystery woman who runs in and out of his house at will. March was seen in similar scenes of undress in ``The Lovers,'' the arty film that managed to hide its pornographic bent amid artistic photography. Her acting ability is less impressive than her lack of shyness.
Shirley Knight (who was Paul Newman's love in ``Sweet Bird of Youth'' and an Oscar nominee in ``Dark at the Top of the Stairs'') has a bit as a bitter wife. The best performance, though, is by Ruben Blades, the actor-singer who recently lost his bid to become president of his native Panama. Blades plays an extroverted cop who seems to be the only one who suspects there may be something remotely ridiculous about this whole case. He succeeds in signaling the audience that it's OK to relax and have some fun with this. No one else even tries.
There is no hint that we could excuse all this as satire. Everything is played seriously.
Why is it, then, that we get the urge to laugh? ILLUSTRATION: MOVIE REVIEW
``Color of Night''
Cast: Bruce Willis, Jane March, Scott Bakula, Ruben Blades, Lesley
Ann Warren, Brad Dourif, Shirley Knight, Lance Henriksen, Kevin J.
O'Connor
MPAA rating: R (nudity, graphic sexual scenes, gory violence,
language)
Mal's rating: 2 Stars
Locations: Chesapeake Square and Greenbrier in Chesapeake, Janaf
and Main Gate in Norfolk, Lynnhaven, Pembroke and Surf-N-Sand in
Virginia Beach.
by CNB