TELLING LIES IN AMERICA
By Harvey Karten, Ph.D. Banner Entertainment Director: Guy Ferland Writer: Joe Eszterhas Cast: Kevin Bacon, Brad Renfro, Maximilian Schell, Calista Flockhart, Paul Dooley
A great many Americans nowadays are not so eager to receive the world's tired and poor. Liberals fear that massive immigration will take jobs away from long-term residents. Conservatives are wary of changes in the racial and ethnic structure of the U.S. But moderates on both sides cannot plug the extra thump in the heartbeat when they hear the classic story of immigration to U.S. shores. The story goes simply like this. Father and son, refugees in the Old World because of the vagaries of warfare and political programs, seek a better life in the land of freedom and opportunity. They join the huddled masses, generally in the larger cities of the promised land, where dad sticks to the traditional ways of thinking and son tries his darndest to become all-American cool. Being different, the recent immigrant has a foreign accent, is unaccustomed to the ways of his new location, and is if a young person, he is often harassed in school and treated like an outsider. Eventually he become more American than the natives and is accepted as an equal.
"Telling Lies in America," a semi-autobiographical from the pen of Joe Eszterhas, is the tale of the that Hungarian-American's experience during the early 1960s in the Free World, specifically in Cleveland. Eszterhas, perhaps the most highly paid screenwriter in Hollywood, is best known for his disastrous scrawl of the movie "Showgirls," panned almost universally, but earning him a very handsome $2 million dollars. While the 17-year-old Karchy Jonas (Brad Renfro), the character meant to represent Eszterhas, shows no particular talent or inclination to become a writer, he possesses one great gift that would help him to become a storyteller: he lies and lies and lies. He is not necessary a pathological fibber, but lets go with some whoppers to boost other people's esteem of him. Why does he need to do this? He feels--rightly so--that he is not accorded the respect which any human being has the right to demand.
"Telling Lies in America" is a heartwarming story which, while offering nothing particularly new to the classic formula of its genre, is boosted by remarkable performances from its principals, particularly by Kevin Bacon in the role of a cynical, hip disc jockey whose radio station WHK. He is tuned in by kids in the local Cleveland high school who swing to his music at 1960s sock hops and is idolized by Karchy Jonas. Billy Magic (Kevin Bacon) is a magnetic personality who takes payola, or bribes from record companies who want him to play their discs over and over in order to give the songs a chance to make the top 40 and thereby rake in the money. He does what he can to get ahead: he has a stable of bimbos to maintain, a big red Cadillac still owned by the bank, and a simple apartment to hold on to. But he is not a bad person. He has been fired from one city's radio station after another because he champions "race" music, giving considerable attention to the songs composed by blacks and other minorities. When he spots Karchy (Brad Renfro), a nice- looking, bland lad who is treated badly by his classmates and by his school's principal, Father Norton (Paul Dooley), he hires him to do odd jobs, but in reality he needs someone who is under the legal age to accept sinister envelopes from cigar-smoking producers.
Renfro does a smooth job representing the Hungarian immigrant who tells the girl he wants to impress that he has received a scholarship to Princeton, informs police officers that his father is a doctor, and advises Billy Magic that he has had both girls and filet mignon "lots of times." In the movie's funniest scene, he slips Spanish Fly into the ice cream soda of his date, Diney (Calista Flockhart), hoping that the alleged aphrodisiac would make him irresistible to her. Instead she gets sick to her stomach and has to run home to throw up. At another point he sneaks into the confession booth of Father Norton and hears the mea culpas of the young man in his class who repeatedly picks on him. Renfro holds onto to a poker-faced expression at almost every turn, whether he is using Billy's clout to get Amos (Damen Fletcher), a black kid in his class, a record contract, or when he is trying to impress a hooker hired by his idol. When he lies, Billy Magic does not chasten him but instead seems to get quite a charge from the boy. After all, Jonas was hired because Billy figures that he would never tell the truth about the payola he collects for his boss.
Maximilian Schell is convincing as the hard-working immigrant who wonders about the meaning of the words "cool" and "slick," wants his son to succeed in school, and is enthusiastic about the upcoming swearing-in to become a citizen. Despite the movie's lack of new ideas, it has a touching and intelligent story, and should boost the political agenda of people around the world who yearn to breathe free. Rated PG-13. Running Time: 101 minutes. (C) 1997 Harvey Karten
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