THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 27, 1996 TAG: 9610260037
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Movie review
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, MOVIE CRITIC
LENGTH: 56 lines
A GOOD MAN is all but impossible to find in the movies nowadays.
``The Associate,'' coming on the heels of the hit ``The First Wives Club,'' is but the latest in the male-bashing flicks that seek to capitalize on disgruntled females who find buying a movie ticket a simple means of getting back at the no-good so-and-sos.
As low comedy, ``The Associate'' has its moments.
It is much more than just the movie in which Whoopi Goldberg masquerades as a man, which is how it's been sold. Whoopi is not just ``Mrs. Doubtfire'' or ``Tootsie'' in reverse. The gimmick doesn't even surface until the last third of the movie. Rather than a payoff, it is the absurdity that almost undoes the satire that has preceded it.
Goldberg plays a super-smart Wall Street financier who is overlooked for a promotion when the job goes to a handsome, slick idiot played by Tim Daly. He scored the deal with some good ol' boys at a strip club where they ogled female bodies while figuring the bottom line.
Trying to start her own office, Whoopi invents a fictional adviser named Robert Cutty (after the booze brand) and he almost immediately becomes a celebrity. Eventually, the investors want to see him.
The finale masquerade is the silliest aspect of a film that aspires to the satire of ``9 to 5'' or ``Working Girl.'' Cutty looks a little like Marlon Brando and a little like George Washington, but, to tell the truth, he doesn't look much like anyone who actually has lived. This creature resembles nothing more than someone wearing layers of latex.
Two-time Oscar winner Dianne Wiest is a frumpy secretary who chucks it all to join Goldberg. Her awakening is one of the film's most delightful aspects.
The film is peopled with stock characters, all of whom are so ordinary, and predictable, that we can actually relax and laugh at them. Eli Wallach is the blustery old guy who is a business power.
Bebe Neuwirth (soon to open in ``Chicago'' on Broadway) is the resident sexpot. She flirts and seduces her way up the ladder of success, wrong by wrong. Lainie Kazan is a gossip columnist who threatens to expose the masquerade.
Goldberg is forced to play smart and slick rather than knock-around funny. Assigned to portray female competence, she doesn't get to go directly for the laughs.
Pleasingly, ``The Associate'' is not just a cross-dressing gimmick movie. It is mildly humorous but nothing to fall out about. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
MOVIE REVIEW
``THE ASSOCIATE''
Cast: Whoopi Goldberg, Dianne Wiest, Eli Wallach, Tim Daly, Bebe
Neuwirth, Austin Pendleton
Director: Donald Petrie
MPAA rating: PG-13 (language, a strip club scene)
Mal's rating: Two 1/2 stars by CNB