PRINCE OF CENTRAL PARK
Reviewed by Harvey Karten Keystone Entertainment Director: John Leekley Writer: Evan Rhodes (musical play), Donald Sebesky, Gloria Nissenson Cast: Danny Aiello, Frankie, Harvey Keitel, Cathy Moriarty, Frank Nasso, Jerry Orbach, Paul Sorvino, Kathleen Turner
Usually critics don't discuss the films they've screened as they leave the theaters but in this case I was perplexed, so I broke the rules. "I can't figure this out," I said to my fellow riders in the elevator leading to New York's theater district. "Is this movie supposed to be for kids?" "For very slow kids," drawled a laid-back critic to the guffaws of our little crowd. And indeed it is. This putrid sentimental pap will have any pre-teen with an I.Q. over 80 begging his parents to take him to "American Pie" or "South Park" just to settle his stomach. Though billed by the company as a modern-day Huck Finn, "Prince of Central Park" has as much in common with the Clemens masterwork as a medieval morality play has with "There's Something About Mary." What's more it's as far removed from an authentic story of childhood angst such as Truffaut's "The 400 Blows" as Shakespeare's "Macbeth" is from Barbara Garson's Vietnam-war spoof, "MacBird."
Major credit should go to the actors who, to a person, were able to hold back from breaking out into raucous laughter-- though we can guess how many takes were required to get their serious faces screwed on straight. The tale centers on JJ Somerled (Frank Nasso), offspring of a Scottish father (deceased) and a French mother (who had entered a New York hospital for radiation treatment--though the production notes say that her cancer was considered "untreatable"). Somerled has the trendy notion to track down the mother who apparently abandoned him to the wolves, or specifically to a foster home which in turn handed him over to the tawdry and trashy woman, Mrs. Ardis (Cathy Moriarty)--who makes her living taking in what she calls throwaway kids, getting paid $300 a month for being their foster mom. While the kid runs away to Central Park, he is mugged by a somewhat older kid from his projects, Easy (Mtume Gant), who steals the hapless lad's cash, portable keyboard, medallion, and, earlier on, even his jacket, shirt and pants. Fortunately he has friends. Rosa (Lauren Velez), the caseworker who is piled up with 55 youngsters to look after seems to have time only for JJ. Rebecca (Kathleen Turner) takes a maternal interest in him as does the husband (Paul Sorvino) who has just left her, Noah (Danny Aiello)--who is appropriated named as his hobby is sailing his remotely controlled clipper ship on the Central Park lake. (Though Rebecca seems to us like a loving woman with a strong character, the production notes inform us that she is "a woman whose life was shattered by the frowning of her 14-year-old son.) Best of us he is watched over by a strange individual who lives in the park like a troll and is called The Guardian--played by Harvey Keitel who gives the picture its note of originality: Harvey does not take off his clothes this time around, alas. Oh yes, also Jerry Orbach sings a Scottish song for the kid, leaves him a fin, and disappears from the movie.
Will JJ find trust after having his self-confidence and ability to love shattered early in life (as the production notes assure us were indeed shattered)? And what will become of his romance with an 11-year-old girl, Sophia (Carmen Moreno), who (according to the production notes again) is "deeply in love with him"? Ah, that's where the real suspense kicks in. This "Prince is Central Park" lives up its title: one big royal pain.
Rated PG-13. Running time: 111 minutes. (C) 2000 by Harvey Karten, film_critic@compuserve.com
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