Stephen King's Thinner (1996)
A film review by Scott Renshaw
Copyright 1996 Scott Renshaw
Grade: D // Burn the Negative
(Paramount)
Director: Tom Holland. Screenplay: Tom Holland and Michael McDowell, based on the novel by Stephen King. Director of Photography: Kees Van Oostrum. Producers: Richard P. Rubinstein, Mitchell Gallin. Starring: Robert John Burke, Joe Mantegna, Lucinda Jenney, Michael Constantine.
MPAA Rating: R (violence, adult themes, profanity) Running Time: 95 minutes.
Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
In 1984, a novel called THINNER came out, attributed to an author named Richard Bachman who had four previous horror novels to his credit. Soon, however, several readers noticed a strong resemblance between the prose of Mr. Bachman and that of another popular horror novelist. Sure enough, Stephen King admitted to the pseudonym, and THINNER quickly climbed the best-seller lists, proving that the King name was an important selling point. Over a decade later, a film version is being sold as STEPHEN KING'S THINNER, and it might be enough to make the author wish he had never claimed it. THINNER is a positively dreadful piece of supposedly suspenseful dreck, positively obese with miserable decisions and laughable acting.
Robert John Burke stars as Billy Halleck, an overweight attorney with a gift for using the system to his advantage matched only by his gift for putting on pounds. One evening, a bit of automotive-erotic activity between Billy and his wife Heidi (Lucinda Jenney) results in the death of a gypsy woman, but Billy's friends in the courts see to it that there are no legal consequences. That does not guarantee no consequences of any kind, as the gypsy's father Tadzu Lemke (Michael Constantine) curses Billy with the single word "thinner." Soon Billy finds his diet is really starting to work...a bit too well, as the pounds begin to disappear uncontrollably. Wasting away and desperate, Billy calls in a favor with a mobster named Ginelli (Joe Mantegna) in an attempt to force Lemke to remove the curse before he vanishes entirely.
While most of the basic plot elements in STEPHEN KING'S THINNER match those in the novel, director and co-scripter Tom Holland (who brought the nearly-as-wretched STEPHEN KING'S THE LANGOLIERS to TV screens last year) has somehow managed to abandon every thematic thread which made the story interesting. King's popularity is based, I think, largely on his identification with the horror comics of his youth; his stories have been contemporary morality tales with good triumphing over evil and poetic justice meted out in spades. THINNER depends on the understanding that Billy is a weak, unscrupulous man trying to weasel out of a punishment he deserves, and that the gypsies are an unjustly persecuted minority. Holland, on the other hand, apparently doesn't believe that we can handle a protagonist who is in the wrong, so he turns the gypsies into cackling villains and Billy into the poor, persecuted hero.
That portrayal of Billy is turned into a joke by Robert John Burke, whose performance is simply appalling. As the fat Billy, he is the worst kind of stereotype of overweight people, a grinning happy-go-lucky buffoon who rolls his eyes and mugs at every opportunity; as the thin Billy, he is a rasping cadaver who never seems to register the full weight (pardon the expression) of his predicament. In both cases, there is not an ounce of intelligence in Burke's performance, and not a trace of humanity. In fact, it is so broad that you might be tempted to believe that Holland is playing the whole thing as a goofy horror-comedy like his CHILD'S PLAY, with Burke his punch-line-spewing Chucky stand-in. If so, it is not nearly outlandish enough to be entertaining, and every scene is directed with such a plodding obviousness that it STEPHEN KING'S THINNER becomes a black hole of suspense. As just one example, imagine every possible way it might have been presented creatively that Ginelli had poisoned the gypsies' dogs, then compare your idea to having Mantegna say to the dogs, "How about a little strychnine?"
With bad readings of bad lines in badly directed scenes, THINNER offers little but the opportunity to watch Burke's prosthetic transformation from 290 pounds to 130 pounds. The makeup is the creation of Greg Cannom (MRS. DOUBTFIRE, THE MASK), and it is impressive work. The "fat suit" (full-body in one shower scene) is excellent, but it was an even greater challenge to take 50 pounds off, and superb lighting helps Cannom achieve that effect. Still, all the latex in the world can't turn a cow pie into a chocolate mousse, and STEPHEN KING'S THINNER reeks of incompetence. It is going to be hard for King to distance himself from this one given his cameo as a pharmacist. Perhaps he just wanted a little something for the headache it is bound to give him.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 weighting games: 2.
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