THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, July 7, 1995 TAG: 9507070594
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E9 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Movie Review
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, MOVIE CRITIC
LENGTH: Medium: 62 lines
IN THE HEAT of an escapist movie summer full of noise and bombast, here is a surprise find - a movie in which actors actually talk.
Five damaged souls gather around a tawdry cigar store in Brooklyn in the summer of 1990. As the film progresses, we ever so slowly realize that they will have an effect upon each other.
A sense of community is etched via a fine ensemble cast and a style that suggests the helter-skelter joys of Robert Altman (``Nashville,'' ``Short Cuts''). Vignettes, when finally placed side-to-side, produce some kind of overall picture.
Director Wayne Wang, who also directed ``The Joy Luck Club,'' proves again that he knows how to handle actors. Yet he lacks Altman's ability to pull all the disparate threads into a unified whole. Novelist Paul Auster wrote the script, which is better as dialogue than it is as plot.
This is an awesome cast, immediately worthy of interest. Harvey Keitel is wonderfully natural as Auggie Wren, owner of the cigar shop. Stockard Channing would seem to be miscast as his former girlfriend from Pittsburgh, but she eventually captures the low-down nature of her character.
She arrives to tell Auggie that he is the father of a daughter - a teenager who has run off, taken up with a drug dealer and is now pregnant. He denies parenthood but eventually agrees to visit the girl, who is played by Ashley Judd.
William Hurt, whose career has taken a curious nosedive since he won an Oscar for ``Kiss of the Spider Woman,'' plays a writer blocked by the recent death of his wife. His life is spurred, a bit, when a runaway teen (the ineffectively proper Harold Perrineau Jr.) seeks a place to stay.
The teen eventually seeks out his long-missing father, the operator of a rural service station. As the father, Forest Whitaker acts too self-consciously but demands interest nonetheless.
For those who want something a bit different - something that searches, or gropes, for a more important statement - this is a respite from glossier films in other theaters. The actors make it worth the trip. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
MIRAMAX
Stockard Channing and Harvey Keitel are part of an impressive
ensemble of actors in ``Smoke.''
Graphic
MOVIE REVIEW
``Smoke''
Cast: William Hurt, Harvey Keitel, Stockard Channing, Ashley Judd,
Forest Whitaker, Giancarlo Esposito, Harold Perrineau Jr.
Director: Wayne Wang
Screenplay: Paul Auster
MPAA rating: R (language}
Mal's rating: Three stars
Locations: Lynnhaven Mall
by CNB