
DATE: Sunday, October 5, 1997               TAG: 9710040030

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E12  EDITION: FINAL 
TYPE: Movie Review 

SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, MOVIE CRITIC 

                                            LENGTH:   70 lines

STONE'S DARK COMEDY FALLS INTO OLD ROUTINE

IF YOU HAVE to take ``U-Turn,'' take it as a comedy.

Oliver Stone, winner of three Academy Awards (one for writing ``Midnight Express'' and two for directing ``Platoon'' and ``Born on the Fourth of July'') has pointedly stated that he wanted to make a routine movie here. He has done just that. Perhaps too routine.

He's back in his ``Natural Born Killers'' mode, satirizing violence.

Stone came dangerously close to making a fool of himself with the multi-theories on JFK's assassination, while greatly rehabilitating himself with a wonderfully balanced portrait of Nixon.

Here, he's out to have fun and, depending on your tolerance for ultra-dark comedy, you can go along with him. If you liked the comedy in ``Pulp Fiction,'' for example, you get laughs here. If not, you'll only stare at it and say ``What the blank is all this about?''

It isn't ABOUT much of anything, but there are some great characters hanging around.

Sean Penn plays Bobby Cooper, proving that he can come down to earth and play an Everyday guy. He's a smalltime gambler who gets stuck in the nowhere town of Superior, Ariz., when his radiator hose busts. He's on his way to Las Vegas to pay a debt to Russian gamblers who won't take no for an answer.

The town is made up of varied crazies. Darrell is the slimy garage mechanic with rotted teeth. Who better to play him than Billy Bob Thornton?

Jennifer Lopez, cementing her place as a star, plays the sluttish Grace McKenna who pulls up her skirt and stages a big come-on to the visitor. But she's married to Jake McKenna, the most powerful man in town, played by a mischievous Nick Nolte. The hubby offers Penn enough money to get out of town if he'll kill the wife for insurance money. She has other plans.

Powers Boothe is Sheriff Virgil Potter, manning the town's one patrol car. Claire Danes, whom everyone keeps telling us is a great actress even though she hasn't done much yet, is Jenny, a teen tease. Her boyfriend is Toby N. Tyler, who is supremely jealous, and has TNT cut into his hairdo. Jon Voight, apparently trying to outdo his snake charmer act in ``Anaconda,'' plays a blind man who talks to his dead dog.

After all his money is lost in a bizarre grocery-store shoot-out, poor Penn gets in deeper and deeper. He's very funny with his look toward the camera with a ``This can't be happening'' stare.

In the end, there's a delicious spoof of ``Duel in the Sun,'' although Jennifer Jones and Gregory Peck were a good deal funnier.

The music is by veteran ``Fistful of Dollars'' Western composer, Ennio Morricone.

``U-Turn,'' which bears a notable resemblance to 1993's ``Red Rock West'' (Nicolas Cage), comes perilously close to begging too hard for laughs. Now that Stone has gotten it out of his system, one shudders to think what earth-shattering expose he will next undertake on screen. He's always worth watching. ILLUSTRATION: ZADE ROSENTHAL photo

Grace McKenna (Jennifer Lopez) lures Bobby Cooper (Sean Penn) into a

game of lust and madness in Oliver Stone's ``U-Turn.''

Graphic

MOVIE REVIEW

``U-Turn''

Cast: Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, Jennifer Lopez, Billy Bob Thornton,

Powers Boothe, Claire Danes, Joaquin Phoenix, Laurie Metcalf

Director: Oliver Stone

Screenplay: John Ridley

Music: Ennio Morricone

MPAA rating: R (language, humorously staged violence, brief

nudity)