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April 15, 1996
GGIE
Page 3
Poor acting, subplots ruin Primal Fear
Mo vie^RevieWzzzL
~^0Primat Fear
Staining Richard Gere, Laura Linney
and Edward Norton
Directed by Gregory Hoblit
Rated R
Playing at Hollywood 16
v ' - -
By Rachel Barry
The Battalion
In the case of Primal Fear vs. audi
ences, the verdict is in. Richard Gere is
guilty of making another pointless, pa
thetic movie.
The film follows hot-shot attorney Martin
Vail (Gere) on the case of Aaron Stampler
(Edward Norton), an altar boy accused of
butchering an archbishop in Chicago.
Vail ends up defending his case
against former lover Janet Venable (Lau
ra Linney) and is about to lose when a
new twist in the form of an additional
personality comes into play. It seems
Stampler has more than one voice in his
head, and Vail has one last chance to win
the case.
This so-called courtroom drama is any
thing but dramatic and falls more toward
the sloppy side.
Numerous subplots make the main
vein of the film hard to follow.
Gere’s character is wrapped up in a
multitude of other issues, including his
affair with the prosecuting attorney in
the case, and trying to keep his image
up despite the fact that a former defen
dant ended up at the bottom of a river.
At one point, Vail even hints at some
dark flaw in his past, yet never makes
mention of it again.
These little side roads add nothing to
the storyline and are distracting from the
only truly good part of the film — Nor
ton’s wicked effect on the audience.
Norton, who makes his feature film
debut in Primal Fear, gives a perfor
mance that is the sole piece of entertain
ment to be found in the movie.
>:< tJis ability to switch from the slow
speaking, stuttering Stampler to his
fierce, abusive alternate personality,
Roy, and back again is extremely con
vincing and amazing to watch. His smile
has the ability to be gentle and crazed at
almost the same instant.
The only drawback to his performance
is that it had to be buried among the
clutter of Primal Fear.
Gere is his usual cliche self, bringing
nothing solid to the film.
His character is a fast-talking,
phrase-slinging, arrogant lawyer who has
a habit of leaning forward when he is
talking to people as if to add some sub
stance to his commentary.
Instead, he ends up being nothing more
Edward Norton (Aaron Stampler) is accused of murdering an archbishop in Primal Fear.
than a pretty face for a static character.
His romance with Venable has little if
any chemistry. Linny’s performance as
the hard-working prosecuting attorney is
hollow and weak.
Her attempt to portray a chain smoker
is hard to believe.
Every time she lights up, she looks
like a teen-ager trying to smoke behind
her parents’ backs. Her lines are forced
and shallow, as is most of the material in
the movie.
Primal Fear is in need of a good fine
tuning. Its superfluous plot lines and
plastic characters make the case for a
good film weak at best.
Flirting with Disaster filled with chaotic humor
Flirting with Disaster
Starring Ben Stiller, Patricia
X Arquette and Tea Leoni
Directed by David O. Russell
m i6
***** (out of five)
By Wes Swift
The Battalion
Watching Flirting with Disaster is like
watching a Generation X version of Ameri
ca’s Funniest Home Videos: half of you
wants to believe that everything happen
ing is too crazy to be true, but the other
half is more than certain that it is.
Overflowing with chaotic plot twists
and subtle humor, the frenzied Flirting
with Disaster is the tale of one man
searching for the lost part of his life.
Ben Stiller plays Mel Copland, a 20-
something-approaching-30-something
who jaunts off across the country with
his wife, Nancy (Patricia Arquette), and
social services worker, Tina (Tea Leoni),
in search of his real parents.
Mel feels so incomplete because he
doesn’t know his real parents that he
won’t even give his new child a name.
But what begins as a quest to find his
past turns into chaos as the trio zigzags
through a wild goose chase filled with mis
information and bum lead after bum lead.
And when Mel finally finds his true
parents, the entire story becomes even
more warped.
Director David O. Russell deftly mixes
the over-the-top plot twists and subtle
laughs throughout the film’s 92 minutes.
The laughs are gutbusters, granted,
but more chuckles come from the back of
your mind because you just can’t believe
that each mishap is smothered by anoth
er, funnier mishap.
The film also has a fair share of bril-
(from left) Lily Tomlin, Alan Alda and Glenn Fitzgerald star in Flirting with Disaster.
liant one-liners.
When Lonnie, Mel’s brother who wasn’t
given up for adoption, gets fed up with his
parents’ (played wonderfully by Lily Tom
lin and Alan Alda) stories, he blurts out
the funniest line in the movie, “Jerry Gar
cia! Blah! Blah! Blah!”
Stiller, Arquette and Leoni, while giv
ing good performances, are eclipsed by the
peanut gallery of supporting characters.
George Segal and Mary Tyler Moore are
superb as Mel’s neurotic, adoptive parents,
and Alda and Tomlin brilliantly play Mel’s
goofy real parents with a shady past.
The script’s hectic pace doesn’t allow
audiences to snag a quick breath be
tween laughs.
In fact, its high-speed energy is the
film’s strongest asset and adds to the al
most suffocating chaos.
In the end, audiences probably should
take a respirator or a pacemaker to get
through Flirting with Disaster, or they
may be flirting with disaster themselves.
Psychological thriller
evokes Fear in audience
Reese Witherspoon and Mark Wahlberg star in Fear.
~ Movie Review
Fear
Starring Mark Wahlberg, Re<
^ Witherspoon and William Pete
m
*** (out off five)
By Kristina Buffin
The Battalion
Disturbing is the only word
that can describe a truly bizarre,
yet good psychological thriller.
Nicole Walker (Reese Wither
spoon) is a 16-year-old who is re
belling against a father whom she
thinks abandoned her when her
parents were divorced. Nicole
meets David (Mark Wahlberg) at a
rave one night, and he woos her
with his sensitivity and polite
manners. However, Nicole gets
more than she bargained for.
Nicole’s first sign that David is
not what he pretended to be is
when he kicks Nicole’s friend Gary
(Todd Caldecott) in a jealous rage
because David thought Gary was
coming on to Nicole.
From this point on, it is obvious
David is missing a few marbles,
and his obsession to have Nicole,
at any cost only proliferates.
Steve Walker (William Peter
son) is the protective father who
knows from the beginning that
David is not the caring, polite indi
vidual Nicole sees. In fact, he finds
out David is an orphan
who has been bounced
around by the system
and has a criminal
record. It becomes
Steve’s mission to keep
David out of Nicole’s life,
no matter what the cost.
Wahlberg does a
superb job of portray
ing the obviously men
tally unbalanced
David. There is some
thing about his eyes
and the looks he gives
that can make anyone shiver
from fear.
Although this is only
Wahlberg’s third film, he per
forms like a veteran. He is able
to make David seem charming,
yet he can turn the character
into a psychopath.
Perhaps what makes this
movie work is the combination of
jsound and imagery. With songs
like “Machinehead” and “Come
down” by Bush and The Sun
days’ “Wild Horses,” it only in
tensifies the scenes between
David and Nicole.
The suspense thriller keeps
audience members on the
edges of their seats. You never
know what David may do next
to get Nicole, and you never
know when he will finally snap
and go absolutely berserk.
The ending is perfect for
this movie. It leaves the audi
ence with the feeling of “Wow,
what just happened?”
White hits sophomore
slump with new album
By Will Hickman
The Battalion
Bryan White is back with a
new album after his immensely
successful debut effort — the
eponymous Bryan White. How
ever, despite the fanfare, he
seems to have fallen into the
sophomore slump, and sadly,
Between Now and Forever has
little to offer a listener.
His cliched topics of “lament
ing love lost” and “following the
girl wherever she goes” on the
first half of the album tend to
bore, but for some reason, he
saves the few “good” songs for
the end of the album.
The first song, “Sittin’ on
Go,” has a rather quirky beat,
average verses, but great har
monies in the chorus. From
there. White next sings “Still
Life,” a song about the one that
got away. Good story, but the
song is just too slow.
Another disappointment,
“I’m not Supposed to Love You
Anymore,” is a love dirge where
the narrator expresses, with
woeful angst, the difficulty in
getting over his lost love.
It is a decent piece, but the
deep depression the listener has
already been plunged into due to
the other songs makes this one
hard to stomach.
There are a few
highlights in this oth
erwise lackluster al
bum. The single that
has been released,
“Between Now and
Forever,” is White’s
one shot at reclaiming
the glory he achieved
with his first smash,
“Someone Else’s Star.”
It tells the story of
a girl he’s not wishing
for, but wants to
spend eternity with.
Another highlight is “A
Hundred and One.” It is a toe
tapping, new generation coun
try song that just feels good.
The steel guitar and rocking
beat are a pleasant surprise af
ter all of the other mediocre
tunes on the album.
It seems as if this second ef
fort did not receive the type of
attention that the first album
did, and it remains to be seen if
the momentum from White’s
first release can be maintained
throughout his junior and se
nior years.
It appears as if the album
was just meant to capitalize on
the Bryan White name, but
clearly, he is going to have to
put in a little more elbow
grease at the recording studio if
he wants to move from “up-and-
coming” country talent into a
full-blown Nashville star.
Whether he becomes the
next Billy Ray Cyrus (one-hit
wonder ... for those of you who
have forgotten him already) or
a household name like Garth
Brooks is up in the air, but the
Billy Ray option seems more
likely at this point.