THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, February 20, 1996 TAG: 9602200018
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E5 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Movie Review
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, MOVIE CRITIC
LENGTH: Medium: 90 lines
NORFOLK'S OWN Gary Fleder makes an auspicious feature film debut with the mischievous gangster fable ``Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead.'' Fleder, who attended Norfolk Collegiate before film studies in Boston and Los Angeles, deftly guides an all-star cast, including Andy Garcia, Christopher Walken, Treat Williams, Christopher Lloyd and Jack Warden, through a roguish gallery of lowlife characters.
The film has been the subject of much attention and controversy at film festivals from Cannes to Toronto during the past season. Rising above the fray, Fleder has emerged as one of the hottest new directors in Hollywood (currently working on the film adaptation of James Patterson's best-selling novel ``Kiss the Girls,'' to star Morgan Freeman).
``Denver,'' scripted by Fleder's longtime film-school friend Scott Rosenberg, is richer in characters than it is in plot. Garcia plays Jimmy ``The Saint,'' who got the name because he once went to seminary school. Losing the calling, he became a smooth-talking, oily front man for crime bosses. Jimmy never needed to kill anyone because he could talk himself out of any situation. It's another rather low-key performance from Garcia. He's overshadowed by his supporting cast.
Currently, Jimmy runs a video service to record the last words of soon-to-be-deceased patrons who want to leave a message. He's trying to go straight, but the pay, from the near dead, isn't good. The Man With The Plan shows up in a wheelchair and makes him an offer he can't refuse. The Man, appropriately, is played in pale-scary style by the otherworldly Christopher Walken.
Jimmy rounds up his old cronies for the seemingly simple job. They are assigned to scare a guy who's been sweet-talking the girlfriend of The Man's dimwitted son. When the bumbling gang messes up the assignment, The Man wants them to die - miserably. The assigned killer is Mr. Shh, played by Steve Buscemi.
The gang is made up of wildly disparate dummies. Most notable is the over-the-top comeback performance of Treat Williams as Critical Bill, a trigger-happy psychotic who is first seen letting off his inhibitions by punching a dead body. It is his job to prepare cadavers at a local funeral parlor. Williams steals the film. If John Travolta was the comeback of 1994, Treat Williams must be regarded as the comeback of 1995. Only the mishandling of the film's release could be responsible for the fact that he is not in the current best supporting actor race for the Oscar.
Christopher Lloyd (from the ``Back to the Future'' films) is a projectionist at a porn theater. William Forsythe plays a character who runs a trailer park and is married to a religious fanatic. Bill Nunn is the gang member who smells of pesticide - an employee of Ike's Pest Control.
The language is tough and it all operates, even if inappropriately, in the shadow of Quentin Tarantino's ``Pulp Fiction,'' a film which also dealt with violent low-lifes with deadpan-comic overtones. Fleder, and the film, though, have taken a bum rap from the majority of critics who seemed obsessed with the idea that this film is a rip-off of ``Pulp Fiction'' and ``Reservoir Dogs.''
To the contrary, ``Denver'' was in the works before those films. More to the contrary, this is a much softer and more romantic film than either of Tarantino's rather brittle outings. This would be more appropriately compared to Damon Runyon than to Quentin Tarantino - albeit a '90s, rough-style Runyon.
Gabrielle Anwar, the beauty from ``The Scent of a Woman,'' supplies romance as a ski instructor who surfaces in Jimmy's life. Fairuza Balk, who as a child was Dorothy in the unfortunate sequel to ``The Wizard of Oz,'' has a showy bit as a foul-mouthed prostitute.
Best taken as a comedy, the film's lack of real dramatic structure is both a detriment and a style plus. Rosenberg, whose script for ``Beautiful Girls'' is also currently on view, writes better dialogue than he does plot.
After a series of delays, Miramax, the film's releasing company, has finally sneaked the film into town, almost unannounced.
Fleder has come a long way since his eight-minute student film ``Terminal Round'' was reviewed by this critic at the Naro Expanded Cinema. It's clear that he's going to have a great number of things to do in Hollywood while very-much-alive. This is an important debut. ILLUSTRATION: MOVIE REVIEW
``Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead''
Cast: Andy Garcia, Christopher Walken, Gabrielle Anwar, Treat
Williams, Christopher Lloyd, Jack Warden, Steve Buscemi, William
Forsythe, Bill Nunn, Fairuza Balk
Director: Gary Fleder
Screenplay: Scott Rosenberg
MPAA rating: R (language, violence)
Mal's rating: ****
Locations: Lynnhaven Mall, Virginia Beach.
by CNB