PLAYING GOD (Touchstone) Starring: David Duchovny, Timothy Hutton, Angelina Jolie. Screenplay: Mark Haskell Smith. Producers: Marc Abraham and Laura Bickford. Director: Andy Wilson. MPAA Rating: R (profanity, violence, adult themes, drug use) Running Time: 93 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
There is no doubt in my mind that David Duchovny can be a movie star. His often under-appreciated work on "The X-Files" has demonstrated both dramatic chops and a wry sense of humor, as well as the requisite physicality for action. Duchovny has the looks, the smarts and the range on the big screen to go places most fellow TV alums never go.
It's also clear that he knows how to pick interesting scripts. To a resume which already includes unconventional fare like KALIFORNIA and THE RAPTURE, Duchovny adds Mark Haskell Smith's PLAYING GOD. It begins with a solid premise, introducing us to a former surgeon named Eugene Sands (Duchovny) one year removed from losing his license for operating on a patient while high on amphetamines, and beginning a downward spiral into addiction. A chance at returning to his trade comes when Sands helps save the life of a wounded associate of crime boss Raymond Blossom (Timothy Hutton). Raymond offers Sands a job as his organization's designated "gunshot doc," an offer Sands accepts with some reservations. Eventually he begins to question his decision, but it may be too late to get out once he's in, especially with an over-zealous FBI agent (Michael Massee) breathing down his neck.
Smith's script does about all you could ask a script to do, delivering some well-developed characters and smart dialogue (okay, there are a couple of howlers) in service of that premise. Duchovny selected a nice piece of material to work with, but PLAYING GOD shows that an actor can't choose most of the things which go into the making of a good film. It has the feel of a film which should have been much better, but turned out inconsistent and sloppy under the first-time direction of Andy Wilson (of the popular cable mystery series "Cracker"). There are times when Wilson tries so hard to create his gritty thriller atmosphere -- all distorted imagery, slow motion and awkward cross-cutting -- that the narrative begins to get lost. He's going for the right mood, but with the wrong methods.
Duchovny also had no control over the performances of his cast-mates, though from all appearances, neither did the director. While Duchovny and Angelina Jolie (as Hutton's girlfriend) play low-key to nail the wounded psyches of their characters, all around them fall victim to the notion that louder acting is better acting. Hutton goes irretrievably bonkers as the bleached beach-bum majordomo whose actions rarely make sense, various and sundry gangsters exchange profane threats with bug-eyed malevolence, and Michael Massee plays his off-kilter Fed as a perfect partner for the cross-dressing G-Man played by Duchovny himself on "Twin Peaks." John Hawkes does steal a few scenes as one of Hutton's edgier hired guns, a ring-nosed psycho with a soft spot for his partners. His performance might have been even more effective if a dozen other supporting players weren't making unhinged seem so unnecessary.
The general tone of the performances makes Duchovny stand out like Buster Keaton in a Three Stooges short. His deadpan demeanor begins to seem like a reaction to a bunch of nutcase actors let loose on the screen, rather than the appropriate personality for his redemption-hungry character. In fact, Duchovny is too "together" most of the time; rock bottom doesn't look all that bad if that's where he's supposed to be when we meet him. Then again, it's hard to say whether that particular character choice was Duchovny's to make. A thousand choices go into the making of a movie; Duchovny's choice to accept this role was only one of them. You can see his star quality in PLAYING GOD, but you can also see that picking a sharp script is no guarantee that an actor will be in a sharply-made film.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 God complexes: 4.
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