
DATE: Sunday, August 3, 1997                TAG: 9708040268

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E10  EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Movie review

SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, MOVIE CRITIC 

                                            LENGTH:   63 lines

LOGIC BEHIND ``DREAM WITH THE FISHES'' HARD TO FATHOM

``DREAM With The Fishes'' is so amateurishly directed and acted that it ruins what might have been a good idea - a buddy movie in which a dying charmer volunteers to kill his suicide-prone friend.

As it is, the material is played with the overripe intensity of a student production - guaranteeing that it will emerge as a feel-bad evening.

David Arquette, baby brother of actresses Roseanna and Patricia, has a quirky quality as Terry, a loser who has decided, when we first meet him, to jump off a San Francisco bridge.

He's deterred when he meets Nick (Brad Hunt) a womanizing hustler who happens to be dying of what is identified only as the ``condition.''

Finn Taylor, making his directorial debut, paces the film so illogically that what is meant to be a life-affirming turnaround comes across looking more like aimless wandering - making it completely unbelievable that Terry would eventually be converted to the joys of life.

The director-writer's idea of liberating experiences ranges from a tasteless nude bowling scene with two broken-down prostitutes to a drug-out LSD experience (suggested by double images).

Other supposed kicks include robbing a store, stealing a car and getting a painfully-applied tattoo. If this is all there is, there's no wonder the two guys are thinking of death.

The so-called ``upbeat'' scenes, meant to lead to redemption, might have worked if they had been played in succession as a montage. Director Finn, however, intersperses them with death obsessions, making them meaningless.

In a desperate attempt to write ``cool'' dialogue, Taylor uses the f-word 33 times. (The film was so dreary and slow that you, too, might seek diversion in just counting them.) Snippets of rock recordings are scattered about the soundtrack, but in such a random way that none are allowed a showcase.

Filmed in 26 days on the cheap, the movie contains photography so inept that most of the interior scenes are barely discernible. How much does a light cost?

Cathy Moriarty, an underrated actress who failed to capitalize on her Oscar nomination for ``Raging Bull,'' has a nice bit as a faded stripper, but the rest of the cast has been allowed to overplay at will.

The title seems to apply partially to the ``Godfather'' folks who talked about ``sleeping with the fish'' as tantamount to death, as well as to some protracted mumbo jumbo about how one of the guys was a fish in another life.

The only good thing about this film is that it will make the world outside the theater seem much brighter than when you entered. ILLUSTRATION: Photo

SONY PICTURES CLASSICS

David Arquette has a quirky quality as Terry, a loser who has

decided, when we first meet him, to jump off a San Francisco bridge.

Graphic

MOVIE REVIEW

``Dream With the Fishes''

Cast: David Arquette, Brad Hunt, Cathy Moriarty, Kathryn Erbe

Director and writer: Finn Taylor

MPAA rating: R (nudity, language, drugs)

Mal's rating: One 1/2 stars

Location: Naro in Norfolk