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'Marshals' Will Delight Teen Action Buffs
By Jane Horwitz
Special to The Washington Post
Friday, March 6, 1998
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Also Playing
6 and Up
"The Borrowers" (PG). Charming adaptation of Mary Norton's books about tiny folk living under floorboards. Fun-scary action. British accents require tots' full attention.
Why They're PG-13's
"Krippendorf's Tribe" Anthropology professor and kids fake research in amusing but crass comedy that makes lying cute, primitive cultures jokeworthy. Graphic verbal, visual sexual innuendo; profanity; toilet humor; drinking.
"Sphere" Scientists meet alien intelligence underwater on crashed spaceship in dumb sci-fi thriller. Sea monsters attack, leave gashes, blood; rare profanity; extra-marital affair mentioned. Not for snake, squid phobics.
"The Wedding Singer" Fun farce about lovelorn entertainer. Some strong profanity; semi-graphic verbal, mild visual sexual innuendo; boy drinks liquor, vomits.
R's, Mainstream and Arty
"Caught Up." Young man out of prison tries to go straight, gets framed in lame urban drama. Explicit sexual situations, nudity; profanity, sexual innuendo, homophobic humor; marijuana, liquor use; understated violence, but bloodied victims; implied suicide. Mature high-schoolers.
"Dark City." Man loses identity to alien beings who control city in stunning sci-fi noir thriller. Female murder victims shown bloodied, partially nude; aliens stick needles in humans' foreheads. High-schoolers.
"Senseless." College kid takes serum that heightens senses for extra cash in fun, silly farce. Crude bodily function gags; graphic sexual innuendo; bare tushes; strong profanity; anti-Korean joke. High-schoolers.
"Kissing a Fool." Boorish guy, sensitive buddy fall for same girl in droll romantic fluff. Profanity, verbal sexual innuendo; casual attitude toward premarital sex; muted love scenes; alcohol; drug joke. Teens.
"Dangerous Beauty." Lavish, erotic fact-based saga of 16th-century Venetian courtesan. Art, politics, plague, Inquisition in between trysts. Graphic sexual situations, nudity; explicit sex talk. Older high-schoolers.
"The Gingerbread Man." Lawyer obsessed with attractive client in atmospheric but clumsy thriller. Nudity, semi-explicit sexual situations; briefly bloody gun violence; cat shown hanged; rare profanity; marijuana; drinking, smoking. High-schoolers.
– Jane Horwitz
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"U.S. Marshals" (PG-13)
A tad more attention to plot and character might have made this a terrific flick. Instead, it's puffery-predictable, formulaic and superficial, but fun. "U.S. Marshals" will delight teen action buffs. As for younger kids, it's a surprisingly bloody PG-13, with point-blank gun violence. With its spectacularly drawn-out plane and car crashes, the movie offers two-plus hours of mostly mayhem, with some crude oaths, epithets and an ethnic slur thrown in. Tommy Lee Jones reprises his Oscar-winning role from "The Fugitive" (PG-13, 1993) as crusty-but-fair U.S. Marshal Sam Gerard. He's after an escaped prisoner (Wesley Snipes), a mysterious figure suspected of killing two Secret Service agents. He's not who he seems to be, of course, and though we spend lots of time with him we never get an emotional take on the guy. This is no portrait of character under pressure like Harrison Ford's doctor in the first film. It's just pure pressure.
"Mrs. Dalloway" (PG-13)
This emotionally complex, visually rich adaptation of Virginia Woolf's 1925 novel could easily catch reflective teens in its web-even inspire them to read the book. Those with a feel for history will appreciate the film's sometimes witty evocation of post-World War I London-stuffily class-conscious. And literature lovers will note the stream-of-consciousness style. The story follows a fiftyish society matron, Mrs. Dalloway (Vanessa Redgrave), as she prepares to give a party, and in quieter moments recalls (often in flashback) the unromantic choices she made that led to such a sedate middle age. On a parallel course we follow the wanderings of a shell-shocked veteran (Rupert Graves), plagued to desperation with hallucinations of the trenches. Though Mrs. Dalloway doesn't know him, their spiritual torment merges. The rating reflects war scenes, nonsexual nudity, an awkwardly charged kiss between two young women and discussion of an out-of-wedlock pregnancy.
"The Big Lebowski" (R)
Mature high-schoolers with a taste for irony and a healthy cynicism about '60s hippies may glean some major guffaws out of the Coen brothers' latest epic, a lighter-than-air doper comedy. The well-earned R reflects the portrayal of frequent marijuana use, drinking and nudity. Add strong sexual innuendo, some talk about a convicted child molester, references to LSD flashbacks, other profanity and crudeness, and moderate violence. With considerable hilarity, "The Big Lebowski" follows the misadventures of aging hippie "the Dude" Lebowski (Jeff Bridges), who's chased and beaten by underworld types, cops and oddballs. The Lebowski they're really after is a rich guy with a wayward wife and big debts. With help from his bowling buddies (fab John Goodman and Steve Buscemi) the Dude deals with it.
"Twilight" (R)
An easygoing detective caper with an over-50 superstar cast, "Twilight" may bore high school audiences despite its occasional bursts of action. Unless, of course, they're into good acting, well-turned dialogue and scenes that actually have meaning between the lines. The rating involves considerable profanity, bloody point-blank shootings, semi-nudity and muted sexual situations. Paul Newman plays Harry, a former cop, former private eye and former alcoholic, who depends on the long-term hospitality of his friends and employers, Jack and Catherine (Gene Hackman and Susan Sarandon). Retired film stars, they live in luxury with their snippy daughter (Reese Witherspoon). Their life is complicated by Jack's illness and a 20-year-old mystery that turns violent.
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