
DATE: Wednesday, February 26, 1997          TAG: 9702260036

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E9   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Movie review

SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, ENTERTAINMENT WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   58 lines

MATTHAU, DAVIS BRING SPIRIT TO ``RAPPAPORT''

HERB GARDNER'S ``I'm Not Rappaport'' celebrates fighting the system as a way to keep the soul alive. As such, it is an invigorating and life-affirming entertainment.

Walter Matthau and Ossie Davis, two veteran actors with lined faces to match their experience, play two still-active, still-independent old codgers who meet daily to sit on park benches in New York's Central Park - and pretend they can't stand each other. This is something of the ``Odd Couple'' on a more cerebral, philosophical playing field.

Matthau, as Nat, is a loud-mouthed dreamer who spins yarns about when he was a Hollywood mogul or a Cuban spy. They're lies but he seems, like Tennessee Williams' Blanche Dubois, to be suggesting ``If they aren't true, then they SHOULD have been true.''

Davis, as Midge, is a down-to-earth type who initially believes, or pretends to believe, all this, but eventually calls his pal's repeated bluff. Midge is a half-blind apartment house superintendent who is being forced out of his job by the building's new owner. Nat's daughter (Amy Irving, the former Mrs. Steven Spielberg) is urging him to either come live with her, or be put into an old folk's home.

Davis is the primary pioneering African-American actor of this generation. His only real rival to the title is Sidney Poitier. Matthau, with jowls worn proudly, is one of our great character actors, within his limited range. They obviously know two great roles when they find them. They rejoice in hamming it up and we rejoice in seeing just how far they will go.

``I'm Not Rappaport'' ran for almost three years on Broadway. It has both the disadvantage (talky and sometimes static) and the advantage (literate) of being a filmed stage play.

But it isn't all talk. The old guys come up against a punk (Guillerma Diaz) who is trying to extort money from the elderly. They try to rescue a young girl (Martha Plimpton) from her drug supplier (Craig T. Nelson).

The drug-rescue operation is the film's lone mistake. Since the rest of the film is grounded in down-to-earth realism, this segment seems far-fetched and out of place.

Matthau, as Nat, points out that ``the old people, they're the SURVIVORS. They KNOW something. They haven't just stayed late to ruin your party.''

The film itself eventually proves the statement - and throws a party for which we're willing to stay late. ILLUSTRATION: GRAMERCY PICTURES

Veteran actor Walter Matthau stars as Nat, a loud-mouthed dreamer,

in ``I'm Not Rappaport.''

MOVIE REVIEW

``I'm Not Rappaport''

Cast: Walter Matthau, Ossie Davis, Amy Irving, Craig T. Nelson,

Martha Plimpton, Boyd Gaines, Guillermo Diaz, Ron Rifkin

Director and Writer: Herb Gardner

Mal's rating: ***

Location: Naro Expanded Cinema, Norfolk