F

There are plenty of losers in “Reindeer Games,” a ludicrously
convoluted, laughably hard-boiled heist movie that inspires
incredulity rather than affection.

First there’s John Frankenheimer, a wonder-boy among American
directors during the 1960s with such films as “Birdman of
Alcatraz” and “The Manchurian Candidate” whose career went
into a hideous downward spiral around the middle of the decade,
only to be resuscitated by some fine television work of late.
Recently he’s been trying to work his way back into feature
respectability, but with 1998’s overwrought, underthought
actioner “Ronin” and now this sad caper travesty, he seems
fated to fail. Back to TNT!

Then there’s Ehren Kruger, the present-day wonder-boy writer of
Miramax Films (replacing, it’s said, Kevin Williamson). It was
this script, we’re told, that persuaded the Weinsteins to ink
him for “Scream 3”–but the relative failure of that opus, and
the inevitable catastrophe of this one, with its contrived
plotting and limp dialogue, will probably make him persona non
grata pretty quickly. Make way, Joe Eszterhas!

And what of Ben Affleck? He’s been making bad choices since
“Good Will Hunting” (did anybody see “Forces of Nature”?) and
now, as an ex-con drawn into a plot to rob a casino, he spends
the better part of two hours getting punched out, battered and
otherwise humiliated. Why would he have taken such a role?
Gary Sinise’s acceptance of the villain’s part is equally
inexplicable. Every actor likes to play a snarling baddie, I
suppose, but this character is so over-the-top that he lacks
only a handlebar mustache to twirl in Snidely Whiplash fashion.
Charlize Theron has less to lose, I guess, but she certainly
doesn’t get much of a chance to shine as a femme fatale here.

Miramax Films is a major loser, too. At $30 million “Reindeer
Games” is the most expensive picture its Dimension subsidy has
ever produced, and it’s bound to lay a major egg at the box-
office once word of mouth begins to circulate. It’s a good
thing “Scream 3” is raking in some cash, however undeserved.

But, as always, the big losers in “Reindeer Games” are the
members of the audience, who will wander into the auditorium
looking for a good, old-fashioned time and find themselves
confronted by a movie so bad that the only way one can enjoy
it at all is to assume–against all the evidence on the screen
to the contrary–that it’s intended as a comic sendup of the
action-thriller genre. What’s astonishing is that apparently
none of those involved in this disaster recognized how stupid
the material was and how badly they were dramatizing it. To
keep to the title’s Christmas theme (rendered pointless by the
distributor’s postponement of the piece’s scheduled December
release), “Reindeer Games” is a cinematic lump of coal for
everybody concerned.

Grade: A-

It’s been a good year for dark comedy in American movies.
Curtis Hanson’s followup to “L.A. Confidential” may not be as
coolly observant as “American Beauty” or as goofily off-the-
wall as “Being John Malkovich,” but its oddball mixture of
sharp satire and shaggy-dog absurdity puts it in the same
class as those two remarkable films.

Blessed with a marvelously literate script by Steve Kloves
(based on a book by the talented Michael Chabon), the story
centers on Grady Tripp, a scruffy creative writing teacher at
a Pittsburgh university who’s suffering from a peculiar kind
of writing disorder–he’s simply unable to finish his second
novel, which is up to page 2611. During a difficult weekend
when his school is hosting a writing colloquium, Tripp is
forced to deal with several problems. His wife has left him,
and his mistress–the chancellor of the university (Frances
McDormand) who happens to be married to the chairman of his
department (Richard Thomas)–informs him she’s pregnant. At
the same time, Tripp must deal with his anxious agent (Robert
Downey, Jr.) and two of his students–morose but incredibly
productive James Leer (Tobey Maguire) and lovely, sympathetic
Hannah (Katie Holmes), as well as a visiting writer who’s a
popular success (Rip Torn) and a strange fellow who swears
that Grady is driving his car (Richard Knox).

The preceding precis touches on only the major figures in the
convoluted plot–there’s a tangent involving Marilyn Monroe and
another concerning a blind dog, too–but suffice it to say that
the central relationship is between Tripp, an aging, hippie-
like adolescent seeking to straighten out his life by making
choices (the metaphor of his unfinished book), and Leer, the
new “wonder boy” on the block, who both teaches and is taught.
The mechanics of the plot are of the “frustration humor”
variety–everything seems to go wrong, and disaster piles on
disaster–but though the formula may be pretty old, it’s
handled with such wit, quirkiness and invention that it works
beautifully. And undergirding it all is a basic sense of
reality that gives emotional resonance to the farcical
elements.

The cast is superb. As Tripp, Michael Douglas, looking hugely
disheveled, does his best work in years; playing a real
character after so many pictures in which he’s glided by on an
air of silken yuppiness, he proves that he’s still a true
actor. Maguire, who was so faceless in “The Cider House Rules”
and “Ride With the Devil,” delivers a solid portrait of grim,
repressed youth. McDormand is a no-nonsense foil for Douglas,
and Downey seems to be having a ball as the drugged-up agent
(tyoecasting, indeed). The supporting cast makes its points
without over-exaggeration, with Knox getting big laughs as a
Little Richard wannabe.

It’s still early in the year, but it’s safe to say that the
odd magic that Hanson has worked in “Wonder Boys” will be
remembered come awards time in 2001. It’s a film that keeps
the audience pleasurably off-balance throughout, peopled by
characters whose eccentricities–wonder of wonders–provide
amusement rather than irritation. Though most of its humor is
dark, it will leave you lightheaded and giddy, wanting even
more.