'One Night' Too Many

It’s easy to be deluded into thinking the movie that you conceived, wrote, cast, directed and even composed the music for has got some validity. Not so in the case of Mike Figgis’s "One Night Stand." It’s a resounding mistake, one of those wrongheaded artistic endeavors that takes its absurd notion to the bitter end.

When someone like Figgis -- who obviously cares about the art of his filmmaking -- makes such a boo-boo, there’s no joy in pointing out the failure. But "One Night Stand," which stars the eminently watchable Wesley Snipes and Nastassja Kinski, jangles like a badly tuned piano. There isn’t a moment you can believe in. As demonstrated with greater success in "Leaving Las Vegas," Figgis is a stylist, not a realist. So credibility in his case has to be measured in special ways. But this time, the pretension scale is too pronounced to ignore.

Max Carlyle (Snipes), a TV commercial director, has to stay an extra night in New York when United Nations 50th anniversary celebrations clog the city. Having checked out of his hotel room, he attaches himself to Karen (Kinski), the European beauty who was exchanging rapturous glances with him that morning. They take in the opera. They have a wonderful post-performance date in a Manhattan restaurant. They’re obviously attracted to each other, but they’re married to other people.

How does Figgis get these maritally faithful characters together without alienating the audience? A mugging, for one thing. Karen’s suddenly accosted by a woman while the woman’s partner holds a knife to Max’s throat. Because of Snipes’s apparent longstanding contract to have one victorious fight scene in every movie, Max overpowers the mugger and scares them off with the knife. He escorts Karen to her hotel room. They sleep in separate beds. But in the middle of the night, Karen needs comforting. . .

After this convoluted tryst, Max returns to his smooth Los Angeles life, trying to avoid the suspicious questions of his sexually energetic wife (Ming-Na Wen) and the very interested nose of his dog. Max withdraws from his wife. He insults their mutual, beautiful-people associates, whose spiritual emptiness is now very clear to him. They have a row in the bedroom. The marriage may be dying, but not nearly as fast as the script.

How does Figgis get those one-nighters back together? Max returns to New York to comfort his lifelong pal and incredibly bad performance artist, Charlie (Robert Downey Jr.), who’s succumbing to AIDS. At Charlie’s bedside, Max meets Charlie’s stuck-up, conservative brother, Vernon (Kyle MacLachlan), who happens to be married to. . .

I suppose it would give things away to outline the movie’s most preposterous developments. Instead, I’m obliged to leave you as this movie left me: lost and disillusioned in an audio-visual swirl of overly slick images, self-consciously tasty lounge music, tres cinematic fades to black, an almost embarrassingly over-the-top performance by Downey and a story that seems to have taken less time to create than a one night stand.

ONE NIGHT STAND (R) — Contains sex scenes, profanity, a harrowing death scene and some violence.