Film: 'Billie Jean' too muddled to be the stuff of legends By Rick Lyman Inquirer Movie Critic The legend of Billie Jean is an idiotic teen potboiler about a working-class cutie-pie on the lam who becomes a media sensation for reasons that, like most of the film, make absolutely no sense. Billie Jean (Helen Slater) is a lithe blonde with a cool, dull grace that's meant to suggest earthy innocence. She lives in a dusty Corpus Christi trailer park with her abandoned, love-hungry mother and hot-headed brother named Binx (would J lie to you?). When a gang of middle-class thugs trashes Binx' motor scooter, Billie's innate sense of fairness is offended. After the ensuing struggle, in which contortions are made to impress upon the dimmest bulb in the audience that Billie is blameless, she and Binx and some other trailer-park teens find themselves being pursued by the Lone State's finest. Flashdance meets The Sugarland Express? They wish. When local radio stations take up Billie's cause all she wants, by gosh, is for Binx's scooter to be fixed she finds herself idolized by everyone in the state under the chro-nnloeical or mental aee of 20. Her rallying cry "Fair is fair!" has touched a deep chord out there in media-land. Kids start wearing Billie Jean T-shirts, buying Billie Jean posters, forming Billie Jean fan clubs. In the movie's most ridiculous twist, Billie Jean catches the final half-hour of Otto Preminger's 1957 Saint Joan on the tube and decides to chop off her golden locks in imitation of Jean Seberg's scalp-hugging hairdo. She doesn't get too carried away, though. She still wears what looks like about two pounds of metal hanging from her left earlobe and dresses in tight, pastel boutique-wear. The Joan of Arc connection is vague, at best, but we're apparently meant to understand that Billie Jean is the visionary leader of an army of adolescents tired of the unfairness of the adult world, kids who are willing to go so far as to cut their hair to dramatize their plight. For all this vulgar inanity, Slater (previously seen as Supergirl) isn't nearly as bad as she could have been. And Keith Gordon, one of the most underrated of the current crop of young actors (he was the wacko-nerd in John Carpenter's 1983 Christine), shows up for a few moderately interesting scenes. If The Legend of Billie Jean is painfully short on sense, it's dreadfully long on style the kind of heavy-handed flashiness that's been used by every Flashdance ripoff of the last two years. A new song by Pat Benatar called Invincible plays incessantly, provia ine a thuddine and distracting punc tuation to the season's lamest and most pandering attempt to get into the wallets of American teenagers. Producer Rob Cohen and director Matthew Robbins photograph Review THE LEGEND OF BILLIE JEAN Produced by Rob Cohen, directed by Matthew Robbins, written by Mark Rosenthal and Lawrence Konner, photography by Jeffrey L. Kimball, music by Craig Safan, distributed by Tri-Star Pictures. Running time: 1 hour, 33 mins. Billie Jean Helen Slater Lloyd Keith Gordon Binx Christian Slater Pyatt Richard Bradford Ringwald Peter Coyote Ophelia Martha Gehman Parent's guide: PG-13 (profanity, violence) Slater's close-shorn head to the accompaniment of loud music and neon back-lighting. They seem to think that this moderately spiky coiffure will become, by the sheer power of the movie's appeal, the teen look of the '80s this year's answer to Flashdance's off-the-shoulder look. They must be goofy. "Sheer Hilarity'!!" Phila Daily News "Best Comedy ol Year!!!" Boston Globe SHEAR MADNESS Madcap Comedy Whodunit 4th Hilarious Year HOT TIX V; PRICE DAY OF PERFORMANCE First 30 cash lix purchased between 12 noon & 2 PM at box office Thurs.-Sun, Thurs 8. $14; Fri , Sal 8. $17; Sun 3. $14 PHONE -CHARGE 567-7606 OR TICKETRON CURTAINS THEATRE J031 Sanaom St. Juit orl Rlttanhouia SquarJ No Thru July 28 SWEET CHARITY Wed. thru Fri. at 8 PM: Sat. at 6 & 9:30. Sun. at 7 Special Sunday Matinees. 3 PM. July 21-28 Tickets Wed & Thurs $10, Weekends $11 LA SALLE MUSIC THEATRE 20th St. k Olnay Aa. W1-W0 TONIGHT AT 8 PM Ticket No. 13 THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA RAFAEL FRUHBECK DE BURGOS Conducting ANDREI GAVRILOV. Piano MEYER EGLIN MEMORIAL CONCERT MANN MUSIC CENTER 52nd SI. and Parkalda Avenua 215-587-0707 JULY 24 8 and 10 PM $11.50 WEDNESDAY NIGHT JAZZ HANK JONES TRIO PHONE CHARGE W-7fifK or TICKETRON CURTAINS THEATRE 2031 Sanson) Stmt Just otl Rlttsnhousa Squara EVITA From the Creators ol CATS Limited Engagement Eves Irom $18 95 Mats. Irom $16 95 Group Discounts Available Tickets K Charge Information Call 925-7000 RIVFRFRONT DINNER THEATRE Delaware Ava. at Poplar Strsat. PWIa. Tlekat-W5-7000 n n n njQ Q O
