ZERO PATIENCE
A film review by James Berardinelli
Copyright 1994 James Berardinelli
Rating (0 to 10): 3.2
Date Released: varies Running Length: 1:40 Rated: No MPAA Rating (Sex, nudity, language, mature themes)
Starring: John Robinson, Normand Fauteux, Dianne Heatherington,
Ricardo Keens-Douglas
Director: John Greyson
Producers: Louise Garfield and Anna Stratton
Screenplay: John Greyson
Cinematography: Miroslaw Baszak
Music: Glenn Schellenberg
Released by Cinevista
I don't like being preached to. No matter how laudable the cause or how much I agree with what's being said, I don't appreciate it when a movie wants to tell me how to think. That's one of the problems with ZERO PATIENCE. It takes a narrow view of the AIDS crisis - one that refutes current theories about the disease's origins and spread without ever offering an alternative.
Political and social agendas in movies are more easily acceptable if the film in which they appear are entertaining. Unfortunately, ZERO PATIENCE is virtually bankrupt dramatically. The script lacks coherence and intelligence, and the presentation of several probing questions about AIDS is about the only thing the movie seems to do right.
What's more, ZERO PATIENCE is a musical (a what???), and most of the song-and-dance numbers start up in the most jarring of circumstances. Only one, "Six or Seven Things" actually seems to belong. When it comes to ribald bad taste, there's a song that has some rather unexpected body parts singing about the relative benefits of homosexual sex. Had the film applied for an MPAA rating, this would have guaranteed an NC-17.
The story, such as it is, postulates that the famous European explorer and author Sir Richard Francis Burton (John Robinson) is alive and well (as the result of a drink from a fountain of youth) and working in the Museum of Natural History in Toronto. There, he is putting together an exhibit on the origins of AIDS for the "Hall of Contagions." The subject of his project is Patient Zero (Normand Fauteux), the supposed carrier of AIDS from Africa to North America. Burton's initial motives are mercenary, but encounters with Patient Zero's ghost changes his views on quite a number of things - including his own sexuality, as he falls in love with the ghost.
I should mention that amidst all the ridiculousness that marks the main story, there is a well-told, touching subplot involving a teacher of elementary students (Ricardo Keens-Douglas) who is going blind as a result of AIDS complications. Unfortunately, the amount of screen time allowed to this element of ZERO PATIENCE is a small fraction of the whole.
There are those to whom the outlandish weirdness of this film will appeal, but I am not one of them. In some ways, I appreciate some of the points that writer/director John Greyson is trying to make (especially what he's saying about the greed of the drug industry), but his methods leave a lot to be desired. Then again, ZERO PATIENCE wasn't aimed at me, nor at most of the movie-going population. It's fitting that the inspiration for this movie appears to have been THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW, because my primary reaction after emerging from the theater was something akin to horror.
- James Berardinelli (blake7@cc.bellcore.com)
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