The Miami Herald from Miami, Florida • 200

AT THE MOVIES Fields of the Lord combines tragedy humor 1 SATURDAY JANUARY 18 1992 luH THE MIAMI HERALD INTERNATIONAL EDITION missionaries face jungle woes themselves ence and Andy (Hannah) who follows blindly at least for a while The Quarriers in turn follow them BILLCOSFORD Herald Movie Critic The missionaries in At Play in the MOVIE REVIEW AT PLAY IN THE FIELDS OF THE LORD (R)-1 Cast: Tom Berenger John Lithgow Daryl Hannah Aidan Quinn Kathy Bates Tom Waits Director: Hector Babenco Producer: Saul Zaentz Screenwriter: Jean-Claude Carriere Hector Babenco Based on the novel by Peter Matthiessen Cinematographer: Lauro Escorel Music: Zbigniew Preisner A Universal Pictures release Running time: 180 minutes Vulgar language nudity vio- lence By Fields of the Lord fetch up in Amazonia with a hilarious collection of assumptions about their task which is to a tribe of primitives living in the interior For one thing they believe they can bribe the Niaruna tribe into paying attention to their ministry by setting out an array of beads mirrors pots and pans and machetes (the time is not the 19th Century but the 1970s) For another they believe that a rain-forest culture accustomed since the dawn of time to finding solace in a riotous collection of household gods and evil spirits will happily and permanently convert to the idea of a single savior from a desert civilization halfway around the world The two Protestant missionary couples the Hubens and the Quarriers further believe that the Catholic priest already on site is They believe finally that they can make a difference in this hot wet incomprehensible land It turns out to be a disastrous misapprehension A clue at the outset Adapted with great respect from the true idealists and hence the ones whose faith will be tested mercilessly Spiritual imperialists Aidan Quinn plays Martin Quar-rier loyal to his marriage despite its instability Kathy Bates plays Hazel inconsolably overstuffed and racked by the blackest sexual fear They are so full of righteousness that they have brought their young son with them from North Dakota to the rain forest they think having The Word will make up for being white and soft The collision of these spiritual imperialists with a richly intractable aboriginal population goes pretty well the way expect the jungle after all and everything eventually will rot But the story has a kind of doppel-ganger in it the character of Lewis Moon (Berenger) who is half-American Indian and who decides to go native even as the missionaries are attempting to get the natives to go civilized a bracing bit of parallelism and it gives At Play in the Fields of the Lord its COLLISION COURSE: Missionaries John Lithgow and Aidan Quinn discover that converting the Niaruna Indians is not going to be easy Peter novel At Play in the Fields of the Lord is tragic all right but also darkly funny From the opening moments and the meeting of the missionary couples with two dog-eared mercenaries (Tom Berenger and Tom Waits) stranded in an Amazon village you know that nothing good can come of this business The Hubens Lithgow and Daryl Hannah) are in charge of the mission if not of their fates Leslie Huben (Lithgow) who treats the Portuguese priest as a Satanic pres- The film is big sumptuous and epic one of those movies you have to see I think But for all its seriousness of purpose and Big Themes and for all its length it get much done Too many ideas too little time even at three full hours He also lets the movie go on too long it moves jerkily from patches of brilliance to stretches of mournful predictability The performances are sturdy but none is more than that It seems clear that the signal achievement was surviving those weeks along the river splendid shape Director Hector Babenco (Kiss of the Spider Woman Ironweed obviously loves the story and he has dressed it out with magnificent aerial shots of the country at hand green and seductive and teeming with horrors MOVIE CAPSULES Juice heavy-handed but skillful Herald movie reviewers rate movies from zero to four stars Excellent Very Good Good Vi Worth Seeing Fair Vi Below Average Poor 0 Worthless The reviewers are: Herald movie critic Bill Cosford Juan Carlos Coto Christine Doien Beth Dunlop Leonard Pitts Kathy Martin Laurie Horn Tananarive Due and Ryan Murphy Unless otherwise indicated movies are playing at multiple theaters make our own mark Interdependence Raheem agrees to plan and convinces and Steel to go along The interdependence is what makes the movie work Juice is a skillful combination of traditional thriller and social treatise about he dangers of life on the streets And it is an action film that let up for a minute (if gunplay offends you Juice is not for you) Dickerson uses camera angles to good effect around above and all over us His view of the interrogation by police is claustrophobic while the dance scenes are a fun and well-woven diversion (including a bit part by rapper Queen Latifah) But it is the well-chosen cast that transcends the standard story line as in the tender wake scene in a tenement living room that sings with reality and makes us feel at home In Juice the streets are real the people are real their words are real Maybe why you want to duck when the bullets fly OPENING THIS WEEKEND At Play in the Fields ol the Lord (R) V2: Peter Mat-thiessen's novel about missionaries coming apart at the seams in Amazonia makes a big canvas for director Hector Babenco (Ironweed Kiss of the Spider Woman and he splashes it with color and visions of tropical rot Still the movie drags too many ideas too little time (three hours ust isn't enough but It's also too much of course) Cosford (vulgar language nudity violence) In Dade only: Bakery Center Freejack (R) (unreviewed): Emilio Estevez plays a race-car driver who in 1989 during a car accident at 140 miles per hour is thrown into the world of 2009 where he runs into high-tech bounty hunters led by Mick Jagger and a corporation run by Anthony Hopkins Juice (R) Spike director of photography Ernest Dickerson directs his first movie with finesse A fast-paced story about four Harlem teen-agers who take their quest for "juice" or respect and power on the streets too far The cast of newcomers is noteworthy especially Tupac Shakur and Omar Epps Note: Avoid this If you can't stomach gunplay Due (violence vulgar language sexual situations) MOVING PORTRAYALS: Omar Epps left and Tupac Shakur give strong performances By TANANARIVE DUE Herald Staff Writer Watching the dance scenes in the previews for Juice you expect a rip-off of House Party Or maybe you caught the four black teenagers land the gunshots so bracing for a clone of Boyz the Hood wrong Juice has a mind a mood and a method of its own And what it does wrong is overshadowed by a cast and a pace that make you sit up and take notice Juice the story of four buddies whose lives fall apart after an ill-fated excursion into armed robbery is the debut of black director Ernest Dickerson (better known as Spike director of photography) The movie stars an ensemble of relative newcomers Tupac Shakur (of the musical group Digital Underground) is the unhinged power-mad Bishop Jermaine Hopkins (Lean on Me is Steel a burly jokester with thin nerves Khalil Kain plays Raheem the would-be leader (and the least defined of the four) and Omar Epps is a talented DJ who is the conscience The performances by Shakur and Epps are especially strong Coming of age Juice is part coming-of-age story and part heavy-handed but effective social message also part psychological profile as Bishop grows increasingly psychopathic and just plain scary Much of appeal is the electric chemistry between the co-stars whose characters are well-drawn and whose individual subtleties are threads in the web of their Several contrivances however dim the promise One early scene in which the truants are chased through alleys and over rooftops by cops who want to send them back to school is a cheap excuse for a chase scene In another a white yuppie nearly falls over himself try-'ing to clear out of the way the scene rings with some truth and gets some laughs but a stereotype As a social observation clumsy and forced The title Juice refers to respect and power qualities the teens hope to achieve through the armed robbery of a convenience store They hatch the foolhardy plan after an impassioned call to action by Bishop who has just seen James White Heat Instead of running away from the world (police neighborhood rivals) he says we need to confront them and MOVIE REVIEW JUICE(R)- Cast: Omar Epps Khalil Kain Jermaine Hopkins Tupac Shakur Cindy Herron Director: Ernest Dickerson Producers: Neal Moritz David Hey-man and Peter Frankfurt Screenwriters: Ernest Dickerson and Gerard Brown Cinematographer: Larry Banks Music: Hank Shocklee A Paramount Pictures release Running time: 94tt minutes Vulgar language vio-lence adult themes Films skip theaters go straight to homes ing the debunked memoirs of former New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison But in the end it matter whether Stone's particulars are wrong His broader vision his brief for the agonies of his generation is clear and powerful JFK is like a slap to the face You will pay attention You will cry Cosford (vulgar language violence gore adult themes) The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (R) What happens when the nanny is obsessed with revenge Annabella Sclorra Jungle Fever plays a mom who places her trust and her young son and infant daughter in the hands of a woman whose life Is dedicated to destroying her Curtis thriller is a throwback to the days when filmmakers led by Alfred Hitchcock knew that the key was in the set-up: Create a normal family so the abnormal has something to work on Terrifying then terrifying now Cosford (vulgar language brief nudity violence gore adult themes) The Hitman (R) (unreviewed): Chuck Norris goes undercover to bring down a group of mobsters Hook (PG) Steven Spielberg meets Peter Pan a long-awaited confluence of forever-young Influences and it's predictably lush and buoyant and expensive-looking There's no way Spielberg have made a good movie of this On the other hand Dustin Hoffman's Capt Hook Is more camp than menace and Robin Williams as Pan (now grown up and struggling to recover the memory of his youth) Is unsurprising As for Julia Tinkerbell you clap your hands In the hope that go away The old Peter Pan was scary and exhilarating this one is just great to look at Cosford (mild vulgar language mock violence) Kuffs (PG-13) (unreviewed): Christian Slater is a happy-go-lucky high-school dropout until his brother Is gunned down in the line of duty and he inherits the family police business The Lest Boy Scout (R) -A: Pointless and vile this is a textbook example of what's wrong In Hollywood: Shane expensive screenplay makes no sense whatever and the story of another outside-the-law odd couple (Bruce Willis and Damon Wayans) on the trail of vicious killers Is so tricked up with goofy subplots and violent non sequiturs that if It hadn't been done so many times already it would be Impossible to follow Cosford (considerable vulgar language sexual situations violence) Madame Bovary (U) Claude Chabrol's magnificent film is an incisive rendition of 19th Century French author Gustave Flaubert's landmark novel Filmed near Rouen with a superb ensemble cast led by Isabelle Hupped and Jean-Francois Balmer the film is a merciless dissection of the boredom adulteries and tragedy of an overeducated provincial wife In French with English subtitles Horn (partial nudity sexual situations) My Girl (PG) Mawkish and disorganized this coming-of-age weeper about an 1 1-year-old girl trying to cope with death and guilt (and her widower plans to remarry) Is nonetheless affecting and It will squeeze the tears out of you Dan Aykroyd and Jamie Lee Cudis are in it but Anna Chlumsky owns the movie not because all that good but because simply In so much of it Cosford (mild vulgar language) Naked Lunch (R) David Cronenberg who made his mark in low-budget horror continues to grow (he made Dead Ringers The Fly) Now he takes the famously unfilm-able work by the prince of beats William Burroughs and films It anyway Naked Lunch is an amalgam of Burroughs free-associated surreal speculations on life among the largely gay largely addicted and wholly disaffected demimonde Among the Cronenberg conceits: special effects by which tormented typewriters turn into large and demanding insects Talk about block Cosford (vulgar language nudity implicit sex violence adult themes) The Prince of Tide (R) Barbra lumbering treatment of the Pat Conroy novel Is too long and too saccharine by a Carolina mile and it seems entirely too devoted to showing off the legs Nick Nolte gives a fine performance (fighting a bad Southern accent at every step) as the head of a troubled South Carolina family who falls for his suicidal therapist That's just the prem- Ise folks it only gets weepier from there Cosford (vulgar language violence adult themes) Ricochet (R) Denzel Washington stars as a district attorney being framed in bizarre and violent fashion by a psycho played by John Lithgow The casting is odd the film is bloody and foolish and the best performance is a chiller by rap star Ice in a small supporting role Cosford (vulgar language nudity sexual situations considerable violence) Ruth (R) A cautionary tale about drugs and cops and the 70s based on Kim novel about narcs gone bad It's full of dread but not violence It's much more an addiction drama than a big-screen Miami Vice Cosford (vulgar language brief nudity sexual situations adult themes) Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country (PG) This is Trek VI and they say the last If so good news on two counts: The ancient crew is going out with a semi-bang and we won't have them to kick around any more The plot this time: The decline of the Klingon empire (read Soviet communism in this groaning allegory) Highlight: Kim Cat-trail is one foxy Vulcan Cosford (violence) Terminator 2: Judgment Day (R) Arnold's back as the good robot this time in James badly plotted but amazing-looking sequel the special effects and stunts are like nothing we've seen before Cosford (vulgar language considerable violence) FIRST RUN The Addamt Family (PG-13) This is not your TV sitcom but your New Yorker cartoons brought to life by Barry Sonnenfeld a cinematographer (most notably for Joel and Ethan Coen) here making his directorial debut It's Grand Guignol played mainly for atmospherics and droll sight gags and no knee-slap-per The weakest elements are the borrowings from the TV show The best? The caricatures by Raul Julia and Anjellca Huston as Gomez and Morticia Cosford (mock violence likely to frighten only the youngest children) Beauty and the Beast (G) latest animated feature is Its most beautiful in many years a glorious throwback to the heyday The story on the other hand is a virtual clone of earlier Disney works down to the presence of chipper sidekicks and happy servants all tending to the whims of the aristocratic hero Still it's a bit of magic politically incorrect magic perhaps but splendid sorcery all the same Cosford (some animated violence may be too intense for very young children) Bugsy (R) Warren Beatty as the mobster who invented Las Vegas and Annette Bening as Virginia Hill the Hollywood B-girl who became his obsession Nicely made In every way good script (by the usually florid James Toback) understated direction (from Barry Levinson) first-rate performances by the principals (Beatty's best since Bonnie and Clyde But just another mob movie At the end who cares? Cosford (vulgar language sexual situations violence) Cape Fear (R) Why did Martin Scorsese remake the 1962 B-movie which starred Gregory Peck and Polly Bergen as Innocents stalked by Robert Mitchum's revenge-bent psychopath? Presumably to illuminate the Scorsese themes guilt sin and moral shades of gray But this remake with Nick Nolte Jessica Lange and Robert De Niro (as murderous Max Cady) blurs the lines between the victims and the villains It's also grotesquely violent in places without the redeeming payoff of say Taxi Driver or Raging Bull a gaudy mess Cosford (vulgar language sexual situations violence) Father of the Bride (PG) Steve Martin this time (Spencer racy played the role four decades ago) and missing Invidious comparisons aside (the statute of limitations on remake-bungling ought to be something less than a half-century) there just seem as much humor In the situation today Dad want to lose daughter and he doesn't want to go bankrupt giving her away So? spend 100000 on the wedding and halfway there The movie which never allows for this very '90s answer is a throwback all right but not quite far back enough Cosford (mild vulgar language) Fried Green Tomatoes (PG-13) Oscar-winners Kathy Bates and Jessica Tandy are squandered in the modem half of a compelling memory movie about a murder and the enduring friendship of two women in 1930s Alabama Doien (violence vulgar language) Grand Canyon (R) If this is really Lawrence answer to his earlier generation study The Big Chill then Kasdan has been through some changes and not pleasant ones either Where Chill was facile and glib Grand Canyon a metaphor for man's insignificance) Is somber and almost without hope at least until a wholly unconvincing upbeat ending Still Kasdan makes his points the principal one being that times are tough Danny Glover is first-rate and so is Mary McDonnell Kevin Kline seems uncomfortable but maybe he's supposed to Cosford (vulgar language brief nudity brief violence adult themes) JFK (R) Oliver Stone's take on the Kennedy assassination is that it was a massive conspiracy Involving thousands of plotters at nearly every level of government from Lyndon Johnson to the Dallas Police Department Stone bases his story on some suspect information includ theatrical distribution concerns a South Bronx drug dealer who tricks his gang into fighting a war over his seductive sister During a visit to Seattle last year Vasquez called the movie a forerunner of New Jack City film which was called Enid Is Sleeping when it played the 1990 Seattle International Film Festival stars Elizabeth Perkin? as a bored New Mexico woman who is having an affair with her older husband Qudge Reinhold) She accidentally kills her sister and the lovers spend the rest of the movie trying to dispose of the body Phillips went on to direct last disastrous Gene WilderRichard Pryor comedy Another You More movies Also bypassing theaters this month: The Daughter (in stores now) Italian cult filmmaker Dario Argento produced and worked on the script of this horror movie starring Herbert Lorn as the ruthless leader of a group of Satan worshipers Kiss Me a Killer (in stores now) A thriller about a woman (Julie Carmen) and her lover (Robert Beltran) who plan to kill her husband and take over his business VIDEO NEWS sequel: House IV in which he plays a homeowner who dies in a car crash and comes back to haunt his surviving wife and daughter Katt starred in the 1986 original but not the other sequels Marc Singer last seen in Beast-master 2 continues his direct-to-video career with Ultimate Desires (Jan 30) an R-rated 1991 thriller co-starring Tracy Scoggins as a woman who investigates the murder of a call girl who was one of her clients Film-fest successes Also scheduled this month are a couple of movies that had some success at film festivals before going to video: Joseph 1989 gang-war drama The Bronx War (released Thursday) and Maurice 1990 black comedy Over Her Dead Body (to be released Sunday) more recent effort Hangin With the Homeboys won an award at the Park City Film Festival last year and was released in most major cities The Bronx War which had a similar success at the Berlin Film Festival but failed to achieve By JOHN HARTL Seattle Times Whatever happened to Billy Dee Williams William Katt Dom De Luise Pat Morita and supporting-Oscar winners George Chakiris Wes Side Story and George Kennedy (Cool Hand Luke become direct-to-video stars just like Corey Haim and Marc Singer who also have new movies that are skipping theaters and heading straight for tape this month Already in the stores are Do or Die in which Morita plays an international crime lord pursued by undercover federal agents (Playboy centerfolds Dona Speir and Roberta Vasquez) and Prayer For the Roller-boys a cautionary science-fiction thriller starring Haim as a pizza-delivery boy who dons his skates to do battle with a white-supremacist gang leader (Christopher Collet) The latter received some favorable notices when it played a few Southern California cities last August though box-office results did not encourage the distributor to open it elsewhere Variety called it "blood-pumping while Box Office magazine claimed that message however heavy-handed is more than It was directed by Rick King who made the acclaimed 1986 drama Hard Choices Three big names Williams Kennedy and De Luise turn up Wednesday in Driving Me Crazy a comedy about an East German inventor who develops a car that burn gasoline or cause pollution Chakiris appears the same Iday in Pale Blood playing a Los Angeles private eye who is also a vampire Wings Hauser is the serial killer forced to compete with for fresh blood latest movie due Jan 29 is the only direct-to-video PLANT NURSERIES AND TREE FARMS 5-80 ACRES HIGH NET PROFITS GREAT LAND PLAY LARGE TAX BENEFITS ORDERS STAFF IN PLACE GOOD TERMS GREEN CARD STATUS BROOKSIDE REALTY (407) 498-5600 FAX (407) 496-7978 1.