THE TEMP
A film review by James Berardinelli
Copyright 1993 James Berardinelli
Running Length: 1:38 Rated: R (Sexual situations, violence, gore)
Starring: Timothy Hutton, Lara Flynn Boyle, Dwight Schultz, Oliver Platt, Maura Tierney, Faye Dunaway Director: Tom Holland Producers: David Permut and Tom Engelman Screenplay: Kevin Falls Music: Frederic Talgorn Released by Paramount Pictures
Peter Derns (Timothy Hutton) is an executive at a cookie producing company. When his usual assistant becomes indisposed, Kris Bolin (Lara Flynn Boyle), a temp, arrives to help Peter get his office in order and prepare his reports on time. However, Kris isn't satisfied with just being an assistant, and is soon setting her heights on one of a number of executive jobs that suddenly become available as a result of the deaths of the people who previously held them.
I actually liked the ending of this movie. Compared to what usually comes at the end of the majority of today's thrillers, the final scene in THE TEMP is cleverly-written and nicely surprising. Unfortunately, it's about the only thing in this film that the word "clever" could be used to describe. Put simply, most of this motion picture is puerile rubbish.
The plot is a colossal mess. It heaps implausibility upon implausibility until the viewer is left scratching his or her head and saying, "They can't be serious about that." It's the movie's job to present its events, no matter how outlandish in a convincing manner so that the audience can suspend disbelief. THE TEMP either has no idea how to do this, or doesn't care enough to make the attempt. There are a number of subplots that are started, given some background, then inexplicably dropped, never to be heard from again. One or two of them seemed to have some promise. The relationships between certain characters are also left tangled or dangling without resolution.
Of course, this film is in the grand tradition of second-rate garbage like THE HAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE, UNLAWFUL ENTRY, SINGLE WHITE FEMALE, etc. I keep going into these films hoping that they're going to have some new twist to apply to the genre. None of them, including this latest entry, do. If you've seen one, you've seen them all. In this case, THE TEMP doesn't even have a catchy title.
Timothy Hutton is decidedly unconvincing in his portrayal of the sometimes-paranoid Peter Derns. Hutton goes from wooden to over-the-top at fairly regular intervals. With a little more effort on his part, we might have gotten the feeling that there was something in Derns worth caring about. As it is, we get a dull, one-dimensional man in a business suit who has psychological, financial, and marital problems.
Two performers do reasonable jobs. One is Lara Flynn Boyle in the title role. Not known for solid acting in the past, she's the best thing about this film. It's too bad that her most convincing performance to date (excluding a few memorable scenes in the TV series TWIN PEAKS) comes in a picture that has so little to recommend it. Also doing an impressive job in a smaller role is Maura Tierney (as Derns' estranged wife Sharon), who may play the only genuinely likable character in the whole movie.
THE TEMP is a poor thriller. What's worse, it's unimaginative, with a plot filled with holes that even the easiest-to-please movie-goer will have a hard time explaining away. There's also the expected blood and gore, and the familiar "did she or didn't she do it" questions. But you didn't expect anything better, did you? Not from a movie with a tag line of "Don't get mad. Get promoted."
Rating: 5.2 (D+, *1/2)
- James Berardinelli (blake7@cc.bellcore.com)
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