"The Caveman's Valentine"
Romulus Ledbetter was a Julliard-trained classical musician and a devoted family man who lost his mind. He now lives in a cave on the edge of Manhattan and is haunted by a delusional enemy, Cornelius Gould Stuyvesant, who manipulates Rom's life from atop the Chrysler building. But, when Ledbetter finds a frozen corpse outside his home, he must put aside his dementia and solve the murder in "The Caveman's Valentine."
Kasi Lemmons, an accomplished actress and screenwriter, made quite a splash with her debut-directing job, "Eve's Bayou," which was the highest grossing independent film of 1997. With "The Caveman's Valentine," she uses George Dawes Green's adaptation of his own novel to unfold a murder mystery with Romulus as a very unlikely homicide detective.
The murder story enveloping Romulus involves a handsome young drifter, Scotty Gates (Sean MacMahon), found dead atop a tree outside of the old schizophrenic's cave. When the police, including Rom's cop daughter Lulu (Aunjanue Ellis), dismiss the transient's death, the former music master must piece the clues together alone. He becomes convinced that a prominent Manhattan art photographer, David Leppenraub (Colm Feore), is the murderer. But, who is going to believe the ranting of a crazy man living in a cave?
The brightest point of "The Caveman's Valentine" is the terrific character depiction of Romulus Ledbetter by Samuel L. Jackson. In his last three outings he has played a bad ass private dick in "Shaft," a physically handicapped mass murderer in search of a hero in "Unbreakable," and, in "The Caveman's Valentine" a mentally broken artiste who must put aside his dementia to solve a murder. The actor puts a completely different spin on each of his characters and Romulus Ledbetter is no exception. Topped with a head full of dreadlocks and attired in layers of dirty clothing, Ledbetter is a raving, hallucinating nutcase who is brought back to the sane world, at least for a little while, to solve the murder placed on his doorstep. Jackson, as usual, creates a real, three-dimensional person in Romulus.
After Jackson, though, things get a bit sparse as the rest of the cast has to play off the master actor. This is a fault of the story, not the actors, as the characters are universally overshadowed by the star. False leads and fake outs make up the bulk of the tale as Romulus must strip away the lies and misleading information to finally solve the crime. I don't want to give the story away, but too much slight of hand is used to lead the viewer down false paths in the investigation. Colm Feore does put a slick arrogance into his perf as David Leppenraub and Ann Magnuson, as David's sister and Rom's love interest, comes across as a really nice lady. Anthony Michael Hall has a bit of fun as a yuppie lawyer who, through circumstance, becomes Rom's patron. The rest are there to support Jackson.
Romulus's mental state and delusions are reminiscent of Terry Gilliam's "The Fisher King," especially his ranting against the invisible Stuyvesant. One ongoing hallucination is particularly effective as Ledbetter's ex-wife Sheila (Tamara Tunie), in her younger form, keeps appearing before him as his muse, dispensing advice and criticism as necessary. The focus upon Romulus and his mental illness affords Jackson the opportunity to delve into the character, giving us a terrific study by the actor.
Kasi Lemmons has a tough job topping her debut feature and, without the incredible talent of Samuel L. Jackson, would not have come close. With Jackson in the saddle as Romulus Ledbetter, she has the chance, at least, to successfully get past the sophomore slump. I give "The Caveman's Valentine" a C+.
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