Review: 'Desperate Measures' is desperately dumb

February 12, 1998
Web posted at: 3:40 p.m. EST (2040 GMT)

From Reviewer Paul Tatara

(CNN) -- Could it really be possible that film producers think we don't remember "The Silence of the Lambs," or do they think that Hannibal Lector-izing movie villains is the only way to go when you have to compete in a marketplace full of sinking luxury liners, exploding White Houses and fast-approaching meteorites?

Either way, Michael Keaton's performance as a supposedly brilliant psychotic in "Desperate Measures" contains so many revved-up nods to the Cannibal man, it practically develops a tic.

This movie is so blatantly foolish it has to be intentional, but it's not even foolish on its own initiative. It steals its dumb ideas. Okay, the ideas weren't so dumb the first time around, not really. It's just that these are modern times, baby, and we need to goose this thing a little bit.

So instead of just being smarter than the entire physics department at the University of Southern California (collectively), Keaton's bad guy can do stuff like swallow a small full bottle of a drug used for correcting overdoses, keep it tied to his tooth with a piece of dental floss, then cough it up and gulp down the liquid just as he's being put under for major surgery.

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This way he can hop off the table in the operating room, yank a hose from an oxygen tank and turn it into a flame thrower. That's because he has the tip of a match (or something) crammed under his finger nail. I won't even get into how he dislocates his own thumb to get out of the restraints.

Seems like he could have taken the easier route and just swallowed an AK-47, then he could shoot everybody through his bellybutton.

Another bad role for Garcia

The insanely contrived screenplay by David Klass doesn't know when to quit. It starts off absurd and degenerates from there. Andy Garcia (a good actor who can't pick a movie to save his life) stars as a police detective whose young son (Joseph Cross) desperately needs a bone marrow transplant or he's going to die.

Watch the movie trailer 2 min. 15 sec. VXtreme video

A matching donor is required in these situations, and, darn the luck, the only person in the galaxy who matches up with the kid is Peter McCabe (Keaton), the most evil-est, smartest, trickiest serial killer since the last time somebody made a movie with this character in it.

Keaton has pumped up his muscles and looks great, but this kind of thing is way beyond his range. He basically stares a lot ... or grins maniacally while wielding an operating room flame thrower.

How much does McCabe have in common with Hannibal Lector? Well, we get a scene in which Garcia approaches Keaton's cell while being instructed in the proper etiquette for dealing with brainiac murderers.

You know the drill: Don't reveal anything personal to him, because he can mentally grind you down into sausage filler if he happens to know your favorite color or what kind of toilet paper you use. Never mind that he's tied to a chair and sealed in a person-size zip-lock sandwich bag (I made up the last part).

What Garcia is actually told is that he shouldn't try to get into Keaton's head, because that's just where Keaton wants him. After that, you're a goner. Between this approach and Jodie Foster's cards-to-the-vest, coached tap dance around Anthony Hopkins, I suppose the best way to handle one of these guys is to have him answer a questionnaire via Morse code. Of course, then he'd be able to dismantle the telegraph and turn it into a zip gun.

A directorial disaster

Keaton, as you might expect, agrees to participate in the bone marrow transplant so he can escape and be chased by thousands of cops and a squadron of police vehicles. The twist is supposed to be that Garcia has quit reacting as a cop and is now acting like a loving father. He goes out of his way to stop the other officers from killing Keaton, because you can't transplant bone marrow from a dead donor.

I almost felt sorry for Garcia's character until he stole a police motorcycle and drove it through a huge pair of glass doors (right through the glass), because he was in a hurry. Even if my son were in a life-threatening situation, I'd probably dismount the bike before opening the door. Good thing I'm not a dad.

Barbet Schroeder ("Single White Female" and "Reversal of Fortune") directed this thing, and he evidently left his taste-ometer at the office. Marcia Gay Harden is wasted, yet again, as the often-assaulted surgeon.

Interestingly, the best performance is given by Brian Cox, as Garcia's superior officer. It's amazing, though, that Cox could manage to stay in character. In 1986's "Manhunter," he played an incredibly brilliant, unstoppable serial killer named Hannibal Lector, the character who reappears in "The Silence of the Lambs."

"Desperate Measures" contains more baloney than your average A&P lunch-meat section. There's profanity, an endangered child and that old standby, smart-guy violence. Rated R. 105 minutes.

Related sites:

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• Desperate Measures - Official Site
• Internet Movie Database - Desperate Measures

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