From: "eric walker" <eric.walker@channel1.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies
Subject: scent of a woman
Date: 11 Jan 93 22:27:48 EST
Reply-To: "eric walker" <eric.walker@channel1.com>
Distribution: rec
Organization: Channel 1 Communications

     Martin Brest first hit the big time as the director of BEVERLY
HILLS COP, the movie that eptiomized the Hollywood formula of "good
cop vs. evil drug dealer."  Every bit of the movie was preditcable; if
it wasn't for Eddie Murphy's winning performance, itwould have been a
piece of garbage.
     Brest scored again with MIDNIGHT RUN, another Hollywood formula
film - but once again the project was saved by winning performances
from its lead stars, Robert De Niro and Charles Grodin.  We watched
the movie for these characters, not for the chase-and-crash scenes,
and as a result it delivered handsomely.
     And now we have SCENT OF A WOMAN, which once again looks like a
Hollywood formula product: an innocent college student is whisked off
to New York City for a weekend of thrills by the gentleman he's
supposed to be caring for.  What's more, there's a subplot involving
"honor" and "loyalty" and "betrayal" - something milked shamelessly by
this holiday season's other politically correct "feel-good" movie, A
FEW GOOD MEN.
     On paper, it looks like your standard Hollywood "buddy" movie.
But when one of those buddies is played by Al Pacino, you know that
something good is going to happen.
     Pacino has been on a roll lately, after spending most of the
eighties in near-seclusion.  He's come back with a vengeance, and this
year we've already seen him as the sleazy real estate broker Ricky
Roma in GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS.  Now he plays a bitter, blind war veteran
in a performance that raises SCENT OF A WOMAN above the level of
today's inoffensive schmaltz and makes it a truly enjoyable
experience.
     The setup is pure Hollywood: Chris O'Donnell plays Charlie
Simms, a meek, shy, poor college student who happens to witness a
practical joke played on the school's dean by a group of troublemaking
pupils.  What's more, he's been offered an ultimatum: either he
squeals on the perpetrators and gives names, or he'll be expelled.
(The dean is an idiot, of course; the First Rule of Hollywood college
movies states that the principal must have the IQ and morals of a
dungheap.)
     Now, Charlie has to raise some money for his Christmas trip back
home, so he takes what looks like an easy job: care for an elderly war
veteran over the Thanksgiving weekend.  The woman offering the job
tells him "it's the easiest $300 you'll ever make," but after Charlie
meets the fellow, he admits "I don't get an easy feeling."
     Here's where we meet Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade.
     This is, of course, Pacino's movie: he takes command the second
he appears onscreen, controlling the lives of everyone around him.
Slade is a complex man, who blinded himself by accident when he drank
too much one day and played with a hand grenade; now he tosses down
Jack Daniels as if they were water, never getting drunk.  He screams
at everyone and wants sits alone in the dark, hurting everyone around
him because he feels that it's the only way to survive without
admitting how much he's hurting inside.
     But the Colonel has a special plan for this particular weekend:
as soon as the folks leave the driveway on their Thanksgiving trip, he
practically drags Charlie onto a first-class jet, and the two are off
to New York City.  Slade wants only to feel the touch of a woman's arm
for one last time - but his plan for this weekend is destined to end
in tragedy.

(Continued in the next message.)
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  SLMR 2.1a  THIS is a close-up?!?  A CLOSE-UP, YA JERK! A CLOSE-UP!!!
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