The Miami Herald from Miami, Florida • 185

I WEEKEND Yf FRIDAY'' MAY12 1995 THE HERALD Finding love in stormy wake Herald movie reviewers rate movies from zero to lour stars Excellent Very Good Good 4 Worth Seeing Fair Poor 0 Worthless These reviews were written by Herald Movie Critic Rene Rodriguez Jackie Potts and Fernando Gonzalez OPENING TODAY By RENE RODRIGUEZ Herald Movie Critic One of the Cuban refugees in The Perez Family a love triangle set during the 1980 Mariel boatlift is a former prostitute and sugarcane worker named Dottie She comes to the United States with the intention of sleeping with John Wayne and hoping to own a gold compact with little shells on top she exclaims upon arriving She wait to live the American Dream As Dottie Marisa Tomei has undergone an amazing physical transformation dark voluptuous carnivorously sexy but ebullience that gives Dottie her robust soul a gutsy impassioned performance and whenever in a scene the screen glows And yet the movie lets her down In her efforts to faithfully portray Cuban exile community director Mira Nair Mississippi Masala) shortchanges the pacing and the drive Though The Perez Family looks wonderful (the colors carry a dreamlike richness) and its details are unfailingly authentic there are long stretches which nothing seems to happen a sluggish movie enriched by scenes of genuine tenderness that show what attracted Nair whose films display a broad humanist streak to the material Dottie and Juan Raul (Alfred Molina) arrive on the same boat to Key West from where they are whisked to the Orange Bowl Juan Raul seen his wife Carmcla (Anjelica Huston) and daughter (Trini Alvarado) in the 20 years since they went to Miami for a MOVIE REVIEW Reviewed in Weekend: Crimson Tide 4G The Perez Family this page Gordy Search andDestroy The Englishman Who Wen! Up a Hill but Came Down a Mountain 6G For schedule and locations in your area see movie timeclock 10G Crimson Tide (R) There are enough submarines nuclear missiles crazed Russians and military jargon to fill three Tom Clancy novels in this tightly coiled thriller but the performances that propel the suspense Gene Hackman is in full rant as captain of the USS Alabama ordered to launch a nuclear missile on a captured Russian missile base Denzel Washington is his executive officer who questions the order The disagreement results in mutiny and something more As a pure war thriller the movie wimps out but as a character study of men under extreme duress a pressure cooker Rodriguez (vulgar language violence) The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down A Mountain (PG) Writer-director Christopher Monger claims this droll comedy about two mapmakers held hostage in a Welsh hamlet crazed with mountain envy grew out of a family legend Colm Mea-ney is ribald as the lusty innkeeper and Kenneth Griffith is amusingly puritanical as the sour Rev Jones who leads the villagers in an effort to raise their beloved hill 20 feet As their befuddled but unfailingly polite hostage Hugh Grant is irresistibly priggish Stil you'll wish he had a bit more to do here Potts (sexual innuendo) Gordy (G) A snoozer about a fuzzy white piglet who inadvertently becomes the heir to a billion-dollar industry the Donald Trump of hogs cringe at the wooden performances and halting dialogue Even the animal voiceovers leave much to be desired Potts (no offensive material) The Perez Family (R) This love triangle among Cuban exiles in Miami during Mariel gets the details right authenticity in even the smallest aspects but the story drags Still the performances by Marisa Tomei and Alfred Molina as two refugees who pretend married to expedite their processing are so entertaining they make up for the movie's schizophrenic tone an uplifting work Rodriguez (vulgar language sexual situations brief nudity) Search and Destroy (R) A Much of this odd little comedy a satire on '80s greed and independent filmmaking feels passe and director David Salle a renowned painter have an eye for film: His compositions are better suited for TV But the cast which includes Griffin Dunne as a huckstering talent agent Dennis Hopper as a self-help guru and Christopher Walken as a mysterious businessman with a penchant for tap dancing tear into their tailor-made roles with enough gusto to keep the thing from sinking Rodriguez (vul- PLEASESEE MOVIES 7G -rj'piv -i Ft tl'J rV FINDING THEIR WAY: Above Juan Raul (Alfred Molina) and Dottie (Marisa Tomei) seek advice from faith healer Luz Paz (Celia Cruz) At left Carmela (Anjelica Huston left) and Teresa (Trini Alvarado) romance and with the latter that it stalls Carmela is supposed to be a classy assimilated Cuban American but Huston plays her as a stilted lifeless introvert Her character simply bear watching worse Nair has Huston perform a couple of bits of slapstick an embarrassingly bad idea Dottie and Juan Raul are a much livelier pair When Dottie flirts with an Orange Bowl security guard during her detention there she calls him United States freedom Blond blue-eyed and muscular he represents everything Dottie envisioned America to be But later after their first date he offers her money for sex: Her illusions are shattered Again and again the free world lets Dottie down the dream what she hoped it would be but she adjusts at every turn Juan Raul starts the movie as a shell-shocked frightened creature just spent 20 years in jail and Molina deftly handles his gradual awakening He brings a wry low-key humor to the role could love such a he asks himself as he begins to fall for Dot-tie so unrefined And But the script sometimes requires him to act in a manner that jibe with Juan obvious intelligence The Perez Family is full of bewildering changes in tone Genuinely moving drama mixes with laughable melodrama with failed fantasy and other stuff you quite know what to make of: Is it camp? Is it serious? Hard to tell The conclusion rushes by without sufficient development: You feel like a scene or two missing But the movie ends with such optimism and bittersweet nostalgia it sends you out smiling It takes work to unearth mm Th Perez Fannh'X pleasures bu jr i 41444 THE PEREZ FAMILY (R) -k-k'i Cast: Marisa Tomei Alfred Molina Anjelica Husfon Chazz Palminteri Trini Alvarado Celia Cruz Diego Wallraff Director Mira Nair Producers: Michael Nozik Lydia Dean Pilcher Screenwriter Robin Swicord Based on the novel by Christine Bell Cinematographer Stuart Dryburgh Music: Alan Silvestri A Samuel Goldwyn release Running time: 105 minutes Vulgar language nudity sexual situations Playing at: area theaters weekend visit and got stuck there To expedite their processing through US immigration Juan Raul and Dottie who share the last name Perez pretend to be husband and wife Meanwhile Carmela who has remained faithful to Juan Raul finds out that the boatlift is over Having heard nothing from her husband she assumes never coming and begins a tentative affair with a detective (Chazz Palminteri) The movie jumps constantly from Dottie and Juan makeshift family to new FINALLY ARRIVED: Marisa Tomei as Dottie Perez a Cuban girl looking for the American 1 4 4 A i 4tfi i t- 4 A A 4-1 zaaaaaaH8g.