Teens, parents score top marks in 'License' BY MICHAEL H. PRICE Fort Worth Star- Telegram A fashionable youth hangout known as Archie's anchors a newly opened 20th Century-Fox comedy called License To Drive in the urgency of peer pressure and combative social climbing. The christening of the joint - the "in" place for the film's teen elite - is significant: The resonance of the name evokes the spirit of an American schoolboy totem, the venerable comicstrip everyteen, Archie Andrews, with all that character's baggage of rivalries, romantic longings, parental restrictions - and, especially, car consciousness. The film treads confidently over those concerns while steering clear of Archie -styled contrived wholesomeness. Instead, screenwriter Neil Tolkin and video-trained director Greg Beeman have shaped License To Drive as a reasonably lifelike study of a likable kid whose sedate orbit is disrupted by a dream-girl, a passion for mobility and a well-meaning but disruptive pal who persuades him to take the right risks at the wrong times. The kid principals, Corey Haim as nice-guy Les and Corey Feldman as troublemaker Dean, vie for prominence with comic veterans Carol Kane and Richard Masur, playing Haim's excitable parents. Kane and Masur figure in a savvy, manipulative subplot that should assure License To Drive of an appeal well beyond its obviously targeted teen audience. What one perceives to be the true urgency of License To Drive probably depends upon the age of the viewer. Les' mom and dad are expecting their fourth child any minute; Les is oblivious to his family responsibility, thanks to a blinding passion to get four wheels under him and win the affections of a beauty named, fittingly, Mercedes (played winningly by newcomer Heather Graham). Each plot packs enough suspense to render the more obviously sensational Review: Film License To Drive Price's pick: 7 on a scale of 1 to 10 Director: Greg Beeman Featuring: Carol Kane, Corey Feldman, Corey Haim, Richard Masur, Heather Graham, Nina Siemaszko Rated: PG-13 (language, adult situations, some violent action) elements - notably, some well-choreographed stunt driving - of secondary importance. Kane is arguably the heart of the movie, which allows her a memorable support role. The versatile artist has landed a couple of TV Emmys (for Taxi) and copped an Oscar nomination (for Hester Street) but her efforts of late often have gone toward rescuing unbearable movies Ishtar and TRansylvania 6-5000. Kane plays her heavy-with-child character for full show-stopping impact, at t once klutzy and graceful and thoroughly endearing. A dinner scene captures Kane in delightfully absurd form: Mom will allow no one to leave the table until every bite of her specialty is devoured; the delicacy is a mashed potatoes-and-sardines combo, which, she boasts, she has eaten during each of her pregnancies. Masur makes a suitably rumpled and tolerant father a guy who's willing to toast son Les and daughter Natalie (Nina Siemaszko) for completing driver's ed sessions, and even more willing to celebrate when he learns that Les has saved him a fortune in insurance by flunking the driver exam. The two Coreys, Haim and Feldman, are chums off-screen a circumstance that lends keen credibility to their pairing. For director Beeman, License To Drive marks a promising debut. He gets in and out of the requisite slapstick hokum with efficient directness and concentrates more strikingly on emphasizing the good-natured humanity of the story.
