The Miami Herald from Miami, Florida • 77

WEEKEND MOVIES Wild at Heart: wild crazy love story to work even harder than Cage (largely because working so hard) and no more successful These two carefully modulated curiosities hit the Southern back roads in full flight from jealous mom (Diane Ladd) and the collection of thugs (including Isabella Rossellini Harry Dean Stanton and Willem Dafoe wearing a hideous stump-toothed dental appliance) hired to do away with Sailor As for Crispin Glover you knew he had to have a part in this thing given the makeup of the rest of the cast he has an extended cameo as a young man so taken by Christmas that he dresses as Santa Claus well into July and who stuffs cockroaches into his briefs Other directors will give you a sunset or a dramatic aerial or a romantic subplot as narrative relief Lynch gives you Crispin bug-infested shorts a fierce weird beauty to films of course along with the ugliness he cultivates and the violence without which his work would be suitable for Pee-weefs Playhouse If Lynch seems to be pressing it may be because he has spent too much time in the well-pruned land of television and now feels like spreading those pterodactyl wings again screeching and yawping at his cultists in the medium where he can get away with almost anything In Wild at Heart Lynch is at least more erotic than he has ever been Cage and love scenes are conventionally sexy no tricks (though the perverse climax comes in a relatively modest encounter between Dern and Dafoe) But the emotional intensity that the title seems to promise and that the story of a couple of dim-bulb lovers on the run through parts unknown usually provides in Hollywood is missing The problem here is that there really enough heart All the wildness is in the head still crazy but hard to love new film is enjoyable but not for squeamish By BILLCOSFORD Herald Movie Critic Wild at Heart the new David Lynch film was once rated and subsequently repaired 3nd last spring won the big prize at Cannes Neither of these developments much supports the concept of and sure enough there is something forced about this movie as if Lynch were out to get us first of all and only second concerned with the nightmare-walking that drove Eraserhead Blue Velvet and even the deliriously incomprehensible Dune Which is not to say that Wild at Heart gross By no means: Folks who took umbrage at Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! or The Cook the Thief His Wife and Her Lover are going to be positively fighting the urps on this one which opens up with a brain-spattering fistfight cruises through a flies-on-vomit close-up and climaxes with the barely modified decapitation scene that once drew the (and now seems worthy of at least a But wild at its heart? Maybe If you can buy a Lynch love story involving a much-tarnished 20-year-old Southern belle (Laura Dern) and an Elvis-struck parolee (Nicolas Cage) as wildness or a couple in full fugue from Cape Fear NC to Big Tuna Texas as positively off the wall or the scene of a car crash as the ultimate epiphany I want to be too hard on Wild at Heart which frankly I enjoyed immensely when it making me squirm (about a 7030 split there) And no mistaking the film for a genre knock-off or an art-house grind Lynch is an original even when ODD COUPLE: Laura Dern and Nicolas sexy scenes have no tricks MOVIE REVIEW WILD AT HEART (R) Cast: Nicolas Cage Laura Dern Diane Ladd Willem Dafoe Isabella Rossellini Harry Dean Stanton Crispin Glover Director: David Lynch Producers: Monty Montgomery Steve Golin Joni Sighvatsson Screenwriter: David Lynch Cinematographer: Frederick Elmes Music: Angelo Badalamenti A Samuel Goldwyn release Running time: 120 minutes Vulgar language nudity implicit sex violence and gore every frame But Wild at Heart seems far too calculated for its own good Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern may be a perfect odd couple on paper but in action wildness is always that of the actor working working and here he is little more than a redneck version of the oddball philosopher of Moonstruck As Sailor Ripley ex-con and Elvis lip-syncer Cage does wear a particularly repellent snakeskin jacket which he calls symbol of individuality and my belief in personal before decking a speed-metal punk who dares to cross him and criticize his coat on the dance floor Dern as Lula Fortune breathy white trash and dog-loyal girlfriend has forcing it you know in the presence of something special in almost George Scott above stars in this tale set in Georgetown 17 years after the phenomenally successful original as the city is in the grip of a series of brutal murders 'MY BLUE Belushi carries Taking Care MOVIE REVIEW TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS (R) for comic actor character just a con the most popular con in stir a guy so swell that his fellow inmates will stage a fake prison takeover just to cover for his escape so he can get to the World Series (Cubs vs Angels and broad comedy my friends) The story never does make much sense and the way it was cut suggests either incompetence or some sort of llth-hour desperation several scenes are obviously out of order and a sequence at a restaurant in which one character is alternately seen with her cigarette unlit lit and then fresh again all in the same 30-second stretch of continuous dialogue At times hard to pay attention to the narrative more fun (and every bit as rewarding) watching for gaffes Still there are some good gags and the deep pleasure of watching Grodin our Buster Keaton Hard work paid off By BILLCOSFORD Herald Movie Critic James Belushi is the kind of actor to whom talk-show hosts used to refer without irony (and Arsenio Hall doubtless still would) as hardest-working man in show in everything though his projects are never A-list and he never leaves a deep impression and he seems to do everything asked of him He probably never will be a big star But he grows on you In Taking Care of Business the latest Belushi he plays an escaped convict (37 counts of grand-theft auto) opposite a slick corporate type played by Charles Grodin The gimmick is that when Grodin loses his FiloFax with credit cards and Malibu house key Belushi finds it and assumes the new identity which brings him money fame and babes broad comedy As drawn Belu- FRIDAY AUGUST 17 1990 THE MIAMI HERALD PINCH HITTING: When con man Jimmy Dworski (James Belushi) finds a folio belonging to executive Spencer Barnes (Charles Grodin) he assumes his identity complete with money fame and women Cast: James Belushi Charles Grodin Anne DeSalvo Veronica Hamel Hector Elizondo Director: Arthur Hiller Producer: Geoffrey Taylor Screenwriters: Jill Mazursky Jeffrey Abrams Cinematographer: David Walsh Music: Stewart Copeland A Hollywood Pictures release Running time: 105 minutes Vulgar language brief nudity mugged and left in a trash bin and otherwise abused But Belushi who carries the thing It look like acting at all: He plays a lout having a good time which may be genetic in this case On the other hand James has danced his way out of the long shadow and he now is a genuinely ingratiating screen per- Steve Martin above is a charming organized crime informant relocated to a small California town whose antics chagrin the FBI agent assigned to him' sonality Unlike his late brother James make you laugh just by looking at him a cocked eyebrow do He has to work at it He does It works Because of James Belushi Taking Care of Business is bearable Even funny.