The Dancer Upstairs (R) (124 min.) - Pure evil looks like a bespectacled college professor in John Malkovich's directorial debut, an impressively nuanced thriller about a conscientious cop (Javier Bardem, above left) and his search for a terrorist leader (Abel Folk) in an unnamed Latin American country.
Malkovich's moody, textured film was adapted by Nicholas Shakespeare from his 1995 novel, based in part on the search for Abimael Guzman, the one-time academic turned founder of Peru's Shining Path guerrillas. Tampa Tribune reporter Todd Smith was among the group's thousands of victims.
Dead dogs swinging from lampposts in well-traveled streets are the first clue that something's askew in "the capital," as titles identify the city. Several apparently related murders later, Rejas (Bardem), a family man and former lawyer appalled by the governmental corruption he has observed, has assembled a team of doggedly determined investigators. Their mission is to track down someone named Ezequiel and the followers responsible for committing murders and leaving behind cryptic messages.
A subplot about the detective's flirtation with his young daughter's ballet teacher (Laura Morante, right) and the consequences of that near-romance are the only false notes in Malkovich's film. Everything else, including Bardem's performance as a man whose heavy eyelids and sleepy manners hint at the emotional and spiritual burdens he's carrying, rings true. It's slow moving (maybe 25 minutes too long) but compelling, down to the book-ended clips of the late Nina Simone, in concert, singingWhere Did the Time Go? B+
