TOUCH
A film review by Steve Kong
Copyright 1997 Steve Kong
When Get Shorty came out, I was not too excited to see it. I wondered what was so wonderful about that movie. And when it came down to it, I did miss the movie in the theatres. But, after many recommendations later on from co-workers, I went out and rented the movie to watch. And what a wonderful movie. The best part of the movie was the dialog. The movie was filled with great dialog. I regretted not seeing Get Shorty in the theatres, so when Touch, another movie based on a Elmore Leonard novel, came out I rush out to see it.
Touch is about a young man, named Juvenal, who bleeds from his palms and heals with his touch. Touch is also about a woman, Lynn Faulkner, played by Bridget Fonda, who falls in love with Juvenal unexpectedly. Christopher Walken plays a snake-skin-boot-wearing-television-evangelist-turned-RV-salesman who weasels his way into becoming Juvenal's agent. Tom Arnold plays a crazed religious activist.
The movie is feels split between two completely different stories. One is about the relationship that is building between Juvenal and Lynn. The other is about Walken's character and Arnold's character trying to get access to Juvenal. The relationship story has potential, the other story has a cheap feeling to it. As if the writers needed something to be the conflict that pushed the relationship story. Arnold heavily overplays his part and most of the time makes it feel as if his character really didn't belong in this movie. Walken's character is not overplayed by Walken, but its over stressed by the director. How many shots of his snake skin boots do we need to see to figure out that he is not an honest guy? Fonda and Ulrich do a good job with their parts.
The movie has a cheap low-budget feel to it. And there are cheezy lines spouted as, "Controversy is the oxygen I breathe!"
Did I enjoy any part of the movie? Yes, I did. I enjoyed the parts of the movie when Janeane Garofalo was on screen. She is a cynical publisher in the movie, and plays it right on the money. She is funny in all the scenes that she has, and is just about the whole comedy part of the movie.
All in all, I wish that I had seen this on video or better yet on cable, and I still want to see Get Shorty on the big screen. If you're planning to see this, wait till it hits the small screen, it's just not worth seeing in the theatres.
steve kong dt@wco.com mookie's place web http://www.wco.com/~dt/ mookie's place bbs +1.408.942.1984
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