South Florida Sun Sentinel from Fort Lauderdale, Florida • Page 119

6 Showtime, Friday. November 20, 1987 REVIEW Nuts' a searing drama full of superb performances NUTS 111 Fwaui tr-eiummimllam. By CANDICE RUSSELL Film Writer Despite the title, Nuts, which stars Barbra Streisand, is not a comedy. It is, instead, a crackling courtroom drama with shadings across the emotional map. When laughs come, they often derive from Streisand's smart-alecky, obscene ripostes.

As Claudia Draper, a prostitute charged with murder, she does everything to betray her own innocence. In court, the $350-an-hour lawyer hired by her parents argues for her mental incompetency and institutionalization. Claudia protests, then slugs him in the jaw for not listening to her. So is she nuts? Or just very, very angry? The bravura role is perfectly suited to Streisand. After the mixed critical reception and tepid box office response to Yentl, she needed a film to reassert her considerable gifts as an actress.

Nuts does the job. Deglamorized and unladylike, Streisand may not look or act much like the ambitious women of her early screen career. But in spirit, there is a connection between Claudia and these previous characters. They are fierce, driven, unyielding in their beliefs, zealots in their own cause. As in Funny Lady, the actress quickly makes the audience jump on her bandwagon, bad behavior notwithstanding.

With time out for a few flashbacks that re-enact crucial moments in Claudia's life, Nuts is all talk but what scintillating talk it is from a cast of familiar faces. Richard Dreyfuss superbly plays Aaron Levinsky, Claudia's court-appointed attorney who fights for her right to have a trial. When accused of murder, a prostitute tries to prove her competency to stand trial. Credits: With Barbra Streisand. Richard Dreyfuss.

Maureen Staple-ton. Directed by Martin Ritt. Written by Tom Topor. Darryl Ponic-san, and Alvin Sargent, based on the play by Tom Topor. I 1 Coarse language, profanity, sexual situations, aduit theme.

Poor Fair Good Excellent cut away from the brown courtroom and the stark mental hospital to Claudia's apartment. Levinsky has gone there, the scene of the crime, to learn more about his client. She is a person of refined taste, as her antiques and paintings indicate. This scene also is a quiet respite from the barrage of venomous accusation and eloquent defense, written with touches of brilliance by Tom Topor (based on his play), Darryl Ponicsan and Alvin Sargent. This is a movie that celebrates language and its clever manipulation.

There's neither an overwrought nor halfhearted performance in Nuts. Stapleton is a stand-out, conveying a mother's pain and regret in tears that won't stop. Nuts is a treat on so many levels that Streisand, who also produced the film, should be especially proud. When Academy Award nominations are announced in February, her excellent performance is bound to be recognized. It's the least she deserves for playing one of the strongest women's roles onscreerf in 1987.

is Richard Dreyfuss is the attorney who represents Barbra Streisand, who plays a prostitute. and parries, trying to find the cause for this upper-middle-class woman to have become a hooker. Whether she killed the white-haired businessman (Leslie Nielsen), who purchased her favors for the evening, is not at issue. Her subsequent hysteria makes her seem crazy. Until the matter is ajudicated, Claudia is locked up in a New York psychiatric hospital.

In a two-day hearing to determine her competency, the truth is coaxed out of witnesses. The Freudian Nuts goes into some grim territory, but courtroom barbs and witticisms provide plenty of humor. Told that she probably broke the nose of her first lawyer, Claudia is pleased: "So the day's not a total loss." As directed with vigor by Martin Ritt (Norma Rae), Nuts requires the filmgoer to accept on faith the hopelessness of Claudia's case. She is articulate and hostile, intelligent and yet ignorant of how to play the game of justice. The predictability of the outcome doesn't take away from the pleasure of getting there.

Ritt makes a wise decision to REVIEW Thriller underwhelms with bad plot, acting He finds opposition from Robert Webber, the other attorney, whose chief witness is an easily rattled psychiatrist, a man with rigid ideas about propriety, played by Eli Wallach. James Whitmore plays the judge. To cap this near-embarrassment of thespian riches, Maureen Stapleton and Karl Maiden are Claudia's parents. This stately looking couple is shocked at her actions and coldness to them. Their facade of composure strikes Levinsky as false.

Against Claudia's wishes, he verbally thrusts dren are forced to move into her parents' house. Since her father didn't know Corrine had any children, she must keep them hidden until he dies; otherwise, she will not be reinstated in his will. From the moment the family arrives at the huge mansion, Fletcher treats the kids like "the devil's spawn," telling them such grandmotherly homilies as, "God sees everything you do behind my back and he will punish you for it!" It's obvious lhat director Jeffrey Bloom hinged the film's intensity on Fletcher, who was so convincing as the malignant nurse opposite Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. SEE FLOWERS PAGE 13 FLOWERS IN THE ATTIC Vz star An avaricious widow tries to kill her children to gain an inheritance. Credits: With Victoria Tennant, Kristy Swanson, Jeb Stuart Adams, Ben Ganger, Lindsay Parker, John Amos, and Louise Fletcher.

Based on the novel by the late V.C. Andrews. Screenplay and direction by Jeffrey Bloom. I I Violence, adult situation, adult language. Poor Fair Good Excellent By JUAN CARLOS COTO Special to the NewsSun-Sentinel Flowers in the Attic is a film that blends moronic dialogue, lousy acting and a silly story, creating 95 minutes of incomparable boredom.

Based on the best-selling novel by the late V.C. Andrews, the film centers on four children, whose mother, Corrine (Victoria Ten-nant), tries to kill them to gain an inheritance from her ailing father. Corrine married incestuously, and was disinherited by her rich, ailing father and her evil mother Louise Fletcher). When her husband dies, Corrine and the chil- Juan Carlos Coto is a free-lance writer based in Coral Gables. Victoria Tennant, left, is menaced by Louise Fletcher..