Apt Pupil: Brad Renfro, Ian McKellen, David Schwimmer, Elias Koteas
The opening scene of "Apt Pupil" is set in a high school at the end of a week of studying the Holocaust in history class. The teacher reminds the students that if they want to know more, they can always turn to the library.
Instead, Brad Renfro turns to experiential learning, leading to some frightening conclusions.
Renfro is Todd Bowden, a bright, bored high-school student. Using leaps of logic that would impress even the Scooby Doo crew, he deduces that neighborhood recluse Arthur Denker (Ian McKellan) is in fact Kurt Dussander, who ran one of the Nazi concentration camps during the war and is still wanted by the Israeli government.
For some reason, instead of turning Dussander over to the police, Todd blackmails him - firsthand information about the death camps in exchange for his silence. "Tell me what the schools are afraid to," he pleads.
As Dussander's tales grow ever more glorious and graphic, Todd grows more and more unraveled - having gas chamber hallucinations in the shower, doodling swastikas in his notebook, falling behind in school. Then he grows truly disturbed, killing birds and the occasional homeless man.
Based on a novella by Stephen King and directed by Bryan Singer (who helmed the Oscar-winning "The Usual Suspects"), "Apt Pupil" clearly had a lot of potential. King's story, and thus the screenplay, is sufficiently spooky if you can wade through the mounds of mediocrity - it doesn't get truly suspenseful until the second hour.
McKellan, winner of multiple film awards, turns in an acceptable performance as the despicable Dussander, right down to the faux German accent. And the supporting cast, from David Schwimmer to Elias Koteas, is right on target as well.
Renfro, however, is a disappointment. His character seems disturbed even at the start of the film, so his descent into depravity has little effect on the viewer. This lapse is inexcusable in the key character in the film. We should be mourning for his shrinking humanity, not for the movie.
Few would argue that the Second World War and the Holocaust were among the greatest atrocities in history. Last weekend though, a new atrocity was unleashed upon the world - the mediocre, eminently forgettable "Apt Pupil."
...dave
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews