Friday, 5/30/97 SCREENSCENE SCREENSCENE: "Rough Magic" and "Buddy"
"Rough Magic" Directed by Clare Peploe Starring Bridget Fonda, Russell Crowe Genre splicing is one of those artistic feats many are drawn to try but most end up going down in flames. Unfortunately, "Rough Magic" is no exception. Attempting to mix the stuff of film noir with the always-tricky brew of magic realism, plus a dollop of screwball farce, "Rough Magic" ends up being a weak mixture which could only satisfy the thirst of someone unfamiliar with the ingredients the film draws from. The story, set in the late '40s and early '50s, opens with magician's assistant Myra Shumway (Bridget Fonda) chasing bunny rabbits into an elevator where standing is the dashing though ultimately nefarious millionaire Cliff Wyatt (D.W. Moffat). Suddenly Myra is engaged to the millionaire in such a jarring fashion it seems as if a scene was cut out of the film. After a rather contrived accident, Myra finds herself on the run from her fiance (see Jacques Tourneur's noir masterpiece "Out of the Past" for a brilliant riff on this plot line) and winds up in Mexico. British actor Jim Broadbent plays a snake-oil salesman in Mexico on the trail of a miracle elixir and the Mayan shaman who has the recipe. Enter Alex Ross, a standard issue, almost caricature noir hero (he's got the stubble, the dark look in his eyes and he's haunted by the nightmarish memories of Hiroshima and World War II) that actor Russell Crowe manages to breathe some life into. The gumshoe is hired by Wyatt to find Myra, and when they meet, they begin trading barbs and verbal dueling, which means that underneath the animosity, the two actually are kind of sweet on each other. The dialogue tries hard to evoke the zippy patter of the past. Crowe's Ross (his very name a nod to noir scribe Ross MacDonald) even takes to calling Myra "Slim," the same nickname Bogey gave Bacall in Howard Hawks' "To Have and Have Not." Fonda is not without her charms, but if you've seen Bogey and Bacall in action, the invocation of "Slim" only reminds you how great they are and how Crowe and Fonda come up short. As Myra and Ross bond, the salesman finds the sought-after shaman, undergoes a spiritual journey and returns to the land of the living performing miracles using Old World magic instead of the weaker illusionist variety. Myra eventually returns to the States, brokenhearted, when she learns that Ross is a hired goon. What ensues is farcical and tiresome, running low on laughs and sure to wear out its welcome long before the predictably unpredictable finish. Director/co-writer Peploe appears to have some wit and skill, and hopefully she will find material that's meatier. "Rough Magic" may charm some, and surely it'll strike others as nice entertainment. But if you know any of the films this film was spawned from, you'll find this elixir painfully weak, and it's sure to leave you wanting. Grade: C Brandon Wilson "Buddy" Directed by Caroline Thompson Starring Rene Russo, Robbie Coltrane One of the hardest lessons for a mother to learn is that her child is all grown up and doesn't need her anymore. Unfortunately, for Rene Russo, in her newest film, the fuzzy, sentimental, dangerously close to nauseating "Buddy," her child is an 800-pound gorilla. In the first film from the Jim Henson Production company, "Buddy" tells the true life story of Trudy Lintz, an eccentric 1920s socialite who decides to turn her sprawling estate into a zoo for a wide variety of animals. Her "children" include geese, kittens, horses, dogs and four little chimpanzees who dress up like children. Lintz, along with her husband (Coltrane, of "Goldeneye") and assistant Dick (Alan Cumming, of "Circle of Friends") lives in a fantasy world where she thinks that by treating animals as if they were human beings, they will indeed act like them. While this might work for adorable tiny chimps, this doesn't necessarily work for gorillas, a mistake that Lintz realizes when she adopts a sickly baby gorilla. Naming the gorilla "Buddy," Lintz dresses him up in cute little outfits, teaches him to eat at the table, and basically how to behave like a little child. Someone should have told Lintz that gorillas are not human beings and that they grow really big. Really really big. So when the gorilla grows up to be twice the size of her and seven times her weight, Lintz sadly realizes that her "Buddy" doesn't belong with humans and is going to have to live somewhere else. Duh. This new family film will undoubtedly be an audience-pleaser if the crowd is filled with children and their parents. It's another family movie with animals; it's got sweet little creatures doing cute little things, a giant sensitive gorilla, and a kind, gentle heroine in Russo. But for anyone over the age of 12, the film could send anyone into sugar shock. The characters in the film are so unbelievably nice and good to each other that it's almost sickening. Films that feature an animal as the main character will always face the problem of having the animal be endearing enough for the audience. "Babe," a very good movie that featured mostly animals, was successful because Babe was charming and sweet. Buddy is not. Sure, the movie tries to bring out Buddy's "sensitive side," with his little emotional breakdowns in the movie, but these bizarre scenes just turn out to be boring and laughable. Buddy was the wrong animal to focus the film on. Gorillas are not adorable. The film would have been a little more watchable if the focus was on the chimps. They were prettier, smaller and have much more pleasant personalities. But then again, that has probably been done. Aimee Phan Grade: D Goldwyn Entertainment Company Bridget Fonda stars as Myra Shumway, a magician's assistant on the run in Mexico in Clare Peploe's "Rough Magic."