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Friday, May 24, 1996

"A Boy Called Hate"

Written and Directed

by Mitch Marcus

Starring Scott Caan,

Missy Crider and James Caan

Nepotism should not be the determining principle of casting. "A
Boy Called Hate," released today, clearly resulted from a Hollywood
dad’s power to get his son in a movie, and it’s not to the film’s
benefit.

This particular disaster, written and directed by newcomer Mitch
Marcus, tries to give teen angst some dignity by making it more
arty and less gimmicky. Basically, Marcus wants more James Dean and
less Luke Perry, but he ends up with neither.

Yielding to the pressure of star power, Marcus casts Scott Caan,
son of James Caan ("The Godfather," "Misery"), as the film’s star,
Hate. As compensation for his talentless star, Marcus gets to cast
the older Caan as Hate’s father. James gives an acceptable
performance, but Scott’s discomfort in front of cameras makes for
an unnatural, stiff portrayal of a troubled teenager.

His motorcycle cruising, devil-may-care character drags the
anguished Cindy Wells (Missy Crider of "Powder") away from
authorities who think she murdered her uncle, Richard Wells
(Elliott Gould), a district attorney with an affinity for raping
his nieces. Scott attempts to bring Hate to life with a ridiculous,
pimp-like swagger and practiced glare. Despite Scott’s efforts,
watching his performance is like looking at a deer caught in a
diesel truck’s headlights for an hour and a half. Luckily for him,
the film’s awful script makes his fear of cameras almost
forgivable. Bad acting does not hurt the film nearly as much as its
atrocious dialogue.

The script maims what might have once been a good concept for a
movie. Hints of upcoming plot developments are dropped to viewers
with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. When Cindy’s uncle is about to
be murdered, which eventually makes Hate and Cindy two outlaws on
the run, the camera focuses on a sign with the words "The Trap" for
far too many seconds. Viewers almost hear Marcus wondering, "Will
they get that?"

At times, the exaggerated foreshadowing reaches embarrassing
levels, but Marcus humiliates himself much more with his plot.

When Marcus’ script calls for Hate and Cindy to make love in a
gas station’s bathroom because they think they will be killed by
the police surrounding the rest stop, it appears that Marcus has
brought the story as low as it can go. But no! He goes even
lower.

After Hate and Cindy miraculously escape from the gas station
and Hate tries to cuddle with Cindy, she rebuffs him with the
explanation that their sexual interlude was merely "a mercy
fuck."

The dialogue is so tasteless that audiences will have the urge
to brush their teeth when it’s all over. Luckily for Scott Caan,
they will be distracted enough to forget that the film’s star
cannot act.

It would be unnecessarily harsh to ignore that "A Boy Called
Hate" has a few positive qualities. Its music, done completely by
"Pray for Rain," includes a few good tunes. It also throws in some
nice moral lessons (suicide is bad, rape victims should not be
afraid to report attacks, Native Americans were here before the
white man, etc.) in between antics of characters with ethics that
rival Jeffrey Dahmer’s.

And if nothing else, "A Boy Called Hate" can be considered a
valuable scientific experiment ­ it proves that acting ability
is not genetic.

Emily Forster Grade: F

"Spy Hard"

Written by Rick Friedberg,

Dick Chudnow, Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer

Directed by Rick Friedberg

Starring Leslie Nielsen and Nicolette Sheridan

People love James Bond. He’s tough, smooth, seductive ­
he’s a martini-drinking superhero. But what happens when Bond is
suddenly clumsy and a bit stupid? The result is Leslie Nielsen in
"Spy Hard," a spoof on spy flicks that follows the comic pattern of
"Airplane!" and the "Naked Gun" trilogy.

Nielsen plays Special Agent Dick Steele (code name WD-40), a man
who gave up his profession after his true love died while Steele
was fighting his nemesis, General Rancor (Andy Griffith). The movie
begins with this death. The woman dangles helplessly over a cliff
as Steele grips tight trying to save her. If this scene rings a
bell ­ it’s supposed to. This is the first of many other
spoofs within the frame of the spy story. The filmmakers are poking
fun at "Cliffhanger," and their comic sensibilities earn nothing
but a few chuckles.

In "Spy Hard," Priscilla Presley is replaced by the reining
queen of TV movies ­ Nicollette Sheridan. Sheridan plays Agent
3.14, a Russian woman with a French accent who helps Steele track
down his old enemy Rancor.

Sheridan proves herself to be a surprisingly adept comedienne.
She plays off of Nielsen’s silliness nicely and even her karate
kicks are worthy of a few laughs.

Sheridan and Nielsen work as a humorous duo, but the rest of the
movie (with spoofs of "Speed," "Jurassic Park," and "Pulp Fiction"
among others) just seems to have a been-there, done-that feel to
it.

"Spy Hard" is like an action movie, only here it is humor,
rather than explosions and car chases, that has to keep the
audience’s attention. Slapstick humor is Nielsen’s specialty, but
most of his jokes are too familiar to successfully carry the other
mishaps of the film. Nielsen’s blend of lowbrow humor and quirky
physical comedy are getting a little too old to still inspire
roaring laughter and hold a movie together. Unless you are a
devoted Nielsen junkie, it might be more worthwhile to rent
"Airplane!"

Dina Gachman Grade: C-

"Welcome to the Dollhouse"

Written and directed

by Todd Solondz

Starring Heather Matarazzo

and Eric Mabius

Films usually portray pre-teens as happy-go-lucky, immature kids
who sail through adolescence. But this interpretation doesn’t mesh
with most people’s memories of that agonizing, awkward time.

Enter Todd Solondz’s "Welcome to the Dollhouse," the movie that
won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance this year and is the current
darling of critics nationwide. It documents the trials of 11
year-old Dawn Wiener’s (beautifully portrayed by newcomer Heather
Matarazzo) seventh-grade year in suburban New Jersey, when she
encounters everything from being called "lesbo" by the school
cheerleaders to experiencing her first series of crushes. Dawn has
it rougher than most. She’s not only shafted at school, but at
home, too. It’s a heavy case of the middle child syndrome. Her
parents favor her prettier, peppier younger sister Missy and her
older, smarter brother Mark. So Dawn is stuck with no sense of
self-confidence, and she deals with her loser existence the only
way she can. She acts the part.

Solondz, who also wrote and produced "Welcome to the Dollhouse,"
promises to be a prominent director in the near future. The film
highlights his talent as a director with an eye for both detail and
absurd humor. Solondz makes junior high into the black comedy that
it truly is by showing us the agony of that time through seemingly
unimportant events. One example is Dawn’s crush on an older (high
school) boy named Steve, played by Eric Mabius. To the audience,
Steve is obviously slime ­ he uses girls like toilet paper,
dreams of being in a band (only to get more girls), and steals
money from Dawn’s parents. But Dawn, like so many naive
adolescents, thinks that Steve is a god. Her eyes widen when she
sees him. She thinks that she can win him if she lets him "finger
fuck" her, even though she has no clue what that actually means.
And, of course, Steve barely knows she exists.

Solondz makes this both tragic and humorous. He never falls into
the trap of showing Dawn’s problems in a sappy, melodramatic light.
If you feel too old to see a movie about an eleven year-old girl,
you’ll miss out on a unique, entertaining story. And if you feel
like you can’t identify with Dawn because you were the cheerleader
screaming "lesbo" ­ well, that’s all the more reason to go see
it.

Dina Gachman Grade: A

Missy Crider and Scott Caan star in "A Boy Called Hate,"
directed by Mitch Marcus.

Leslie Nielsen (left) and Andy Griffith face off in the film
spoof "Spy Hard."