THE REF
A film review by Scott Renshaw
Copyright 1994 Scott Renshaw
Starring: Denis Leary, Judy Davis, Kevin Spacey. Screenplay: Richard LaGravenese and Marie Weiss. Director: Ted Demme.
Good scripts are so rare in Hollywood that it should be a felony when one gets wasted. Sometimes it's dreadful miscasting; sometimes it's a director without an ounce of vision. The dilemma in which I find myself in such cases is how to temper my response to the things the film failed to do with acknowledgment of its strengths. Last year's TRUE ROMANCE was one of those films, and THE REF is another. There are a lot of laughs in THE REF, more than most recent comedies have provided, yet I found it consistently and infuriatingly falling short of the comic plateau it might have achieved in more skilled directorial hands.
It's the night before Christmas in the affluent Connecticut suburb of Old Baybrook when THE REF begins, but plenty of creatures are stirring. The town is abuzz over the first actual crime in memory, a botched burglary committed by career criminal Gus (Denis Leary). When he escapes the scene and finds the whole state looking for him, Gus kidnaps Caroline (Judy Davis) and Lloyd Chasseur (Kevin Spacey) so that he can hide out in their house. The problem for Gus: the Chasseurs are perhaps the most unhappily married couple since John and Lorena Bobbitt. While Gus waits for a chance to make his escape, the incessantly bickering Chasseurs drive him to distraction, a situation made even worse by the subsequent arrival of their delinquent son (Robert J. Steinmiller, Jr.), a horde of relatives, two local police and a drunken Santa in a pear tree.
The script for THE REF, by Richard LaGravenese (THE FISHER KING) and Marie Weiss, is full of comic and dramatic potential, only some of which ever makes it to the screen. On the surface, there is a scathing comedy which plays like "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" meets "The Ransom of Red Chief." Comic Denis Leary gets the lead billing in his first starring role, but it is the sparring of Spacey and Davis which carries the film. Their acid-filled tirades in the film's first half hour are extremely funny, and the two characters are surprisingly well-rounded. With the arrival of the extended Chasseur family comes the potential for even more outrageous comedy as the Christmas eve dinner degenerates into a primal scream group therapy session. But THE REF never makes the leap to the outrageous. Leary and his director Ted Demme, who collaborated on a series of promo spots for MTV a couple of years ago which popularized Leary's ranting, chain-smoking stand-up persona, seem too concerned here with separating Leary from that persona. Consequently, he plays a number of scenes far too low-key, and in fact fades into the background almost completely in the last half hour.
The disappearance of Leary also hurts the film's dramatic subtext, as Leary's Gus recognizes in the Chasseurs the kind of dysfunctional family which led to his own life, and responds in surprising ways. A number of early verbal confrontations are exceptionally well-written, as all three of the principal characters make their case, and it is to the credit of LaGravenese and Weiss that at various times all three appear to be completely right and completely wrong. Yet while the title of THE REF apparently refers to Gus's action as intermediary between Caroline and Lloyd, that dynamic disappears when the guests arrive. Insults fly, and Leary merely stands around looking exasperated.
There are too many funny things going on in THE REF for it to be a complete failure. I found the town's ill-prepared police force and its disgusted chief to be a hilarious subplot, and their handling of a piece of videotaped evidence is a winner. Spacey and Davis exchange some of the most caustic dialogue since THE WAR OF THE ROSES, a style I always enjoy. Unfortunately, Demme seems unwilling to let the throttle out, and a comedy which had been racing along nicely stalls before it hits the finish line.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 hostages: 6.
-- Scott Renshaw Stanford University Office of the General Counsel
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