ERASER (1996)
A film review by Michael Redman
Copyright 1996 Michael Redman
**(out of ****)
Another Arnold Schwarzenegger movie and this time with even _Bigger Guns_.
(I am tempted to end right here. That one sentence just about says it all.)
This time around Ah-nold is an FBI agent who specializes in creating new identities for and guarding high-profile participants in the government's witness protection program. His assignment is Vanessa Williams who has a computer disk filled with secrets (doesn't everybody nowadays?) about her former employer.
The company, along with key officials in the FBI and Defense Department, is set to sell enormous amounts of the newest high-tech monster electro-magnetic guns to the big bad terrorist. Our hero and damsel in distress have to stop them virtually single-handedly.
There's nothing remarkably new here. In fact several key plot elements are repeated from "Mission Impossible". Not to give too much away, but there's a mole in the organization, Schwarzenegger is suspect and guess who the real traitor is. There's even the same scene where he escapes a situation by shooting through a glass wall and creates a giant flood; here, complete with alligators.
The role is not a stretch for the body builder. It's not much different from any of his others, but he has that one persona mastered. Williams is adequate, but not more, in the obligatory babe in danger identity. The best acting comes from James Caan, but even he has been better. James Coburn is charismatic, but has only a bit part.
The comic sidekick is Robert Pastorelli (Elliot in "Murphy Brown") as Johnny C who brings a group of Mafioso in to help out. More like violent Three Stooges than threatening crime lords, these wiseguys provide some of the best scenes.
In order to enjoy a Schwarzenegger film, you have to suspend disbelief...and logic and the laws of physics and any hope for a story that makes sense. But if you can do that, you'll enjoy scenes like the one where he dives out of a jet, catches up with a parachute in midair and then has a shoot-out with the plane.
Nothing amazing, not even a great Arnold movie, but catch it at a matinee and it's worth the price of admission if no-brain action is what you're looking for.
[Note: this appeared in "The Bloomington Voice", Bloomington, Indiana, 6/27/96, Michael Redman can be reached at mredman@bvoice.com)
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