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New releases: She's no Clarice
By STEVE PERSALL, Times Film Critic
© St. Petersburg Times
published September 26, 2002
Murder by Numbers (R)
[Photo: Warner Bros.]
Sandra Bullock, left, as homicide detective Cassie Mayweather, is cornered by Ryan Gosling, who plays Richard, a high school student suspected of murder in the film Murder by Numbers. |
Privileged high school students named Richard and Justin (Ryan Gosling, Michael Pitt) stage a series of apparently perfect murders, challenging a homicide detective (Sandra Bullock) to catch them. Directed with his usual malevolent chill by Barbet Schroeder (Reversal of Fortune, Before and After).
First impressions: "Murder by Numbers consequently sags when the film shifts away from Richard and Justin. The police-procedural material is fairly bland, largely because we've all been here before: Cassie is tough, but, uh, vulnerable, terrific at what she does but a mess on the domestic front, with skeletons that refuse to remain in her closet.
"The flip side of this standard-issue television material is a focus on the method by which Richard and Justin carry out their malevolent plan; some of this might better have been left to the imagination. Schroeder instead attempts to make viewers feel complicit. It makes for a clumsy, less-than-satisfying mix of elements." (Philip Booth, St. Petersburg Times staff writer)
Second thoughts: Bullock is fine as Miss Congeniality but she's no Clarice Starling.
Rental audience: Bullock fans, morbid crime-watchers.
Rent it if you enjoy: Compulsion, In Cold Blood, Seven.
Stolen Summer (PG)
[Photo: Miramax]
Mike Weinberg and Adi Stein star in Stolen Summer. The film by Pete Jones won first place in HBO’s Project Greenlight screenwriting contest. |
Pete Jones won the inaugural Project Greenlight screenwriting contest, with the prize being a chance to direct it with Miramax money. The HBO television series based on the production schedule showed volatile artistic differences, so the sedate film that emerged is a bit of a surprise.
Adi Stein plays a second-grader named Pete O'Malley whose firefighter father (Aidan Quinn) rides herd over a boisterous Irish-Catholic family. When a nun convinces Pete he's heading for damnation, he naively decides to earn a ticket to heaven by converting Jews to Catholicism. Setting up a theological advice stand in front of a synagogue, Pete befriends a rabbi (Kevin Pollak) whose own family endures a major crisis.
First impressions: "Stolen Summer is a respectable piece of work, a sweetly nostalgic coming-of-age story. (Original ideas obviously weren't a contest priority.) The script seems like a writer's exercise, with too many heart-to-heart talks suitable for workshops but lumpy as a cinematic whole. However, a roster of convincing actors, especially young Stein in the central role, makes Stolen Summer a pleasant curiosity piece." (Steve Persall, Times film critic)
Second thoughts: Wonder if the runner-up project would be more daring?
Rental audience: HBO subscribers, Jones' relatives.
Rent it if you enjoy: Wide Awake, Sunday school lessons.
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