Review: "Witness" - all reviews on this page by Colleen Wallace
Peter Weir creates an arresting contrast between urban and rural worlds and sets up their
inevitable collision in "Witness." Harrison Ford and Danny Glover are urban cops and Kelly
McGillis, Alexander Godinov and Viggo Mortensen are among others who
live in a quiet Amish community. McGillis is Rachel; a recent widow traveling with her young son and the two worlds collide when the boy witnesses a murder in the men's
room of a train station. Corruption is rampant in the police force and when John Book (Ford) questions the boy in a routine fashion, the two stumble on information that
exposes this corruption and puts both their lives in danger. As Book hides out in the Amish farming community, we meet the Hochleitner brothers: the elder
(Godinov) is
pursuing Rachel and resentful of Book and the younger is a baby faced Mortensen. "Witness" is a solidly acted, beautifully photographed thriller, but the stand
out moment is a barn raising where everyone in the rural community is involved. It's a triumphant scene and has more passion than the romantic subplot. One of the reasons
for this is that Harrison Ford, before he made his mark as Han Solo, worked as a carpenter and cabinet maker. His enjoyment of the craft comes through clearly in the
scene and viewers will enjoy the attention to film making craft that went into "Witness."
Colleen Wallace
Viggo Mortensen on Harrison Ford: "He was really into the building-the-barn scene. I was supposed to be handing him tools and he'd say, "Hand me a
whatever," and I didn't know what the hell he was talking about. He probably built most of the barn himself. "
-to Dennis Hensley for Movieline Magazine, 1998
"Psycho" (1998)
Review
While a high concept approach is risky, when it works, it works well for live theatre, but not so well for film. In live theatre, the play closes, sets
are struck and the show is history, except for memories, reviews and a few photographs, so sets and costumes timely for the run of the show are harder to take out of
context. Films, meanwhile, happen roughly in the same time frame it takes to rehearse and perform live, but are immortalized, perhaps no longer on celluloid, but on VHS,
DVD and through interminable reruns. Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 "Psycho" was one of the few films that reached the status of immortality and made an indelible mark
on the collective consciousness. Countless promoters have boasted (among them "Daylight" and "What Lies Beneath") that their film would "do for
(tunnels, bathtubs) what "Psycho" did for showers!" And they never do. Neither does this "Psycho."
Ted Turner got spanked for colorizing classic black and white films, then Gus Van Sant got the bright idea to remake "Psycho" from the original shooting
script and found just how much room remains in Hitchcock's shoes. An observation made about the 1960 original film was that it was more like two films: Marion Crane's
escape from dullsville with a wad of cash to her ill-fated meeting with Norman Bates and later her sister Lila and sweetheart Sam Loomis' journey to solve her
disappearance. As Sam is the only character (other than the obvious title character, Mr. Bates) that appears in both stories and Viggo Mortensen was portraying him in the
updated version, I thought if anyone was capable of finding the through line to Sam and this story, it was Mortensen. So, against my better judgment, I rented
"Psycho, 1998" in the hope of seeing Mortensen and Julianne Moore update Sam Loomis and Lila Crane and instead was treated to good actors wearing bad costumes,
strangled by a dated script. Van Sant takes the low road far too often with scenes played for innuendo and costumes that can best be described as southwest single knit
polyester, mostly in colors that are a visual assault.
What this "Psycho" seems to lack is screen chemistry and either commitment on the part of the female leads or directorial inattention to the lead actresses.
Van Sant seems at his best directing young men, previously showcased in "My Own Private Idaho" and "Good Will Hunting". Whatever the cause, Anne Heche
is never quite present as Marion Crane and Moore, usually an actress of depth and range, mows through her scenes as a no-nonsense Lila, but her tough exterior doesn't
mask her apparently monumental discomfort. Mortensen has some memorable moments as Sam, but his overall performance is uncharacteristically uneven. He doesn't seem to
find his feet until his scenes with Vince Vaughn as Norman Bates, which constitutes the only real screen chemistry in this film.
There is a story circulating that the original choice for the role of Marion Crane was Nicole Kidman. While I can hardly picture Kidman as the quintessential shower
scene victim, it would have made this a very different movie, and a much more exciting one. Instead, Kidman nabbed the last opportunity to be directed by the late, great
Stanley Kubric in "Eyes Wide Shut" and viewers got to see much more of her in a much less thankless role than Marion. Still if you must see Mortensen as Sam
Loomis, "Psycho," 1998 is a go. He manages to have some fun in the opening scene and show off an eye-catching, crescent shaped tattoo near his hip, playing Sam
as a guy with an exhibitionistic streak flying into town for a stolen moment with his sweetheart. Too bad Heche's Marion isn't more of a fun date. My gut told me to turn
this film off after the opening scene and it would have been better had I listened. Instead, I sat through it, sorely missing the authentically horrifying magic Hitchcock
created with chocolate syrup for the blood streaking down the drain in the original, immortal shower scene.
Review: "Carlito's Way"
The team of Brian DePalma and Al Pacino who brought viewers "Scarface" return with "Carlito's Way" and if you like action, mob, drug debacle or neo
noir films, this is one. It's another film which, at nearly two and a half hours, could have told the story in 90 to 100 minutes. Sean Penn puts in an acclaimed
performance as Carlito's attorney who is just a touch too fond of cocaine and has ground his teeth down so far by the end of the film, he could
snort his own bicuspids. Penelope Ann Miller is mostly implausibly sweet as Carlito's sometime lady friend, but in this world (and through DePalma's lens) it seems men
are men and women are furniture. She tells Carlito she's dancing on Broadway, but neglects to tell him that a strip club is where she's dancing.
The bearer of this news is a former associate of Carlito's, Lalin (Viggo Mortensen). Lalin is a no longer walking public service announcement for anyone laboring
under the misconception that cocaine was ever glamorous. Miserably confined to a wheelchair,
Lalin, like Carlito has been sprung from prison early and tries, like
nearly everyone else in the film, to entice Carlito back to his old criminal ways. "Carlito's Way" along with "Albino Alligator" are both opportunities to see Mortensen step out of the
alpha male roles in which he's often cast and earned him solid character actor credentials. The single scene Pacino's Carlito and Mortensen's Lalin share reminded
me of an excellent opening line in the otherwise abysmally depressing film "Glen Garry, Glen Ross" where Pacino relates, "Downtown it was so hot
today that grown men were running up to police officers, begging them to kill them." The disco music throbs under their scene with sadistic irony in the choice
of songs. If you seek a tour de force performance from Sean Penn or have ever accused Mortensen of only trading on his looks "Carlito's Way" is one to
watch. It's free with the first and will change your mind in a heartbeat about the second.
Colleen Wallace
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