One of the rare contemporary films that really is about something, The Company You Keep mixes identity, action and politics to tell a gripping story about what happened to those 1970s antiwar protestors called the Weather Underground (labeled Weathermen by the press) who turned into radical terrorists by blowing up government buildings. They broke laws, endangered lives, fled from prosecution, went into hiding and reinvented themselves. And they are still around, wanted by the FBI, living normal lives under assumed names. News stories occasionally surface in which one of them is nailed in some secret small-town hideaway and brought to justice. But this is not only a story about 13 Weathermen who killed a security guard in a botched Michigan bank robbery 30 years ago. It is also about one member of the accused who wasn’t even present that day, a solid citizen who is forced to go underground again to prove his innocence. In a role tailored to fit his integrity and liberal conscience, Mr. Redford has never been better.

The story begins when a former Weatherman involved in the robbery (Susan Sarandon)—hiding out as a Vermont housewife but on her way at last to surrender to the FBI—gets recognized from a Most Wanted poster and arrested at a New York gas station while filling up her car. Mr. Redford plays another former radical now living as a respected Albany civil rights attorney and single father under the alias James Grant, who refuses to take her case and in doing so arouses the suspicions of ambitious, muckraking Albany reporter Ben Shepard (Shia LaBeouf). Smelling a scoop in the competitive and endangered profession of dwindling newspapers, the aggressive rookie journalist persuades his editor (Stanley Tucci) to let him pursue his hunches, tracks down a college friend (Anna Kendrick) who works for the FBI and discovers that there is no record of lawyer Grant prior to 1979. Hell-bent on beating the authorities to the punch, Ben’s private sleuthing reveals Grant’s true identity to be Nick Sloan, a former colleague of the Vermont soccer mom who is also sought for the Michigan bank heist. Before Ben breaks the story wide open, the Grant/Sloan character leaves his 11-year-old daughter (played by three-octave-singing phenomenon Jackie Evancho, discovered on America’s Got Talent) with his brother (Chris Cooper) and goes on the run. His fact-finding mission to clear his name, with the ruthless reporter in hot pursuit, leads him across the U.S. searching for the whereabouts of the only person who can help him: an ex-girlfriend (Julie Christie) who disappeared years ago to the beaches of Big Sur with a new lover (Sam Elliott). Now his goal is to locate her, rekindle an old loyalty and convince her to give herself up in order to save him and ensure his daughter’s future. Mr. Redford’s quest through the detritus of his mysterious past—encountering a veteran cast of links along the way that includes Nick Nolte, Brendan Gleeson, Terrence Howard and Richard Jenkins—gives the film a compelling thrust of power and suspense. It will leave you breathless.

Adapted from the novel by Neil Gordon, the brilliant screenplay by Lem Dobbs illuminates the plight of the cub reporter in a new age of journalism, updates the latest tracking strategies of the FBI and, in one affecting prison interview between Mr. LaBeouf and Ms. Sarandon, offers some earnest insight into the validity of the noble but misdirected romantic idealism of the ’70s radicals. From archival footage of actual TV news coverage of the Weathermen’s attacks, to a dazzling display of perfect performances, to the complex emotional relationships that result in guilt by association, the disparate elements in The Company You Keep are robustly collated by the keen, well-crafted direction of a master filmmaker at the top of his form. It’s only April, but this is one of the best films of 2013.

rreed@observer.com

THE COMPANY YOU KEEP

Running Time 125 minutes

Written by Lem Dobbs (screenplay) and Neil Gordon (novel)

Directed by Robert Redford

Starring Robert Redford, Shia LeBeouf and Julie Christie

4/4 Stars

Living in an underdeveloped part of the city called Hackney, Mo (Fady Elsayed) is a good kid who respects his dad, watches Bollywood movies on the telly to humor his mom, gets good grades in school and seems destined for a better life, which his handsome, independent older brother Rashid (James Floyd) encourages, saving money to send Mo to college. But Rashid can’t escape the lure, or the pitfalls, of his environment, dealing drugs and playing a pivotal role in the illegal activities of a street gang called DMG (Drugs, Money, Guns). After one of his friends is murdered by a rival gang, Rashid begins to see the futility of his lifestyle. A new friendship with a photographer from Paris named Sayyid (Saïd Taghmaoui) further broadens his perspective. Sayyid convinces him there are cultural pursuits he has never experienced. To Mo’s astonishment, the brother he always worshiped suddenly wears a tie, looks for a job and reads Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet—transformations Mo witnesses with mixed emotions. But it’s not until Mo sees Rashid in bed with Sayyid that his own world falls apart. “I’d rather my brother was a terrorist than a homo,” says Mo. As his loyalty diminishes, he moves closer to the life Rashid used to shelter him from. Lonely and sad, he turns to drink and cocaine, and the closer he gets to the thugs and crackheads in Rashid’s old gang, the closer he gets to inevitable tragedy.

Rashid’s conversion to homosexuality is vague and unconvincing. But the direction by Ms. Hosaini, who is herself of Egyptian descent, is sensitive, offering vital contrasts between the family values of the brothers’ Egyptian heritage and the crime-propelled lifestyle they live in outside their home. The actors are all splendid, especially James Floyd, who I predict has a rich career in future films, and the award-winning cinematography by David Raedeker really transports you to a claustrophobic part of London you will never see as a tourist. Already a big hit in the U.K., My Brother the Devil may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s heady stuff for those who like something stronger than Earl Grey.

rreed@observer.com

MY BROTHER THE DEVIL

Running Time 111 minutes

Written and Directed by Sally El Hosaini

Starring James Floyd, Fady Elsayed and Saïd Taghmaoui

Buried six feet deep with clichés like war protestors chanting “Power to the people!”, riot police throwing canisters of tear gas into a crowd of college students, a hippie commune where everybody owns a typewriter but nobody can repair the fax machine and draft dodgers on their way to Canada disguised as military police who are there to get Mickey to the airport on time, Love and Honor starts with a bang on the front lines but ends with a teary-eyed whimper. The second half turns talky and slow—Dalton gets disillusioned by the changes in Jane, and Mickey turns respectful and responsible. Everybody learns something about the illusion of love and the power of honor. It’s hard to believe it wasn’t written by Nicholas Sparks.

Liam Hemsworth, the Ben & Jerry Flavor of the Month, is a sexy Australian centerfold without a trace of an accent who can actually act. His love interest is Teresa Palmer, a fellow Aussie who recently starred in the zombie flick Warm Bodies. They may be camera-ready smoothies who take their clothes off often enough to keep the teen dweebs drooling, but I’ve seen more skin in a Palmolive commercial. Even in their big skinny-dipping sequence, they’re handled as discreetly by director Danny Mooney as two Disney cows on their way to the state fair. Close to smoking, but no cigar.

rreed@observer.com

LOVE AND HONOR

Running Time 96 minutes

Written by Jim Burnstein and Garrett K. Schiff

Directed by Danny Mooney

Starring Liam Hemsworth, Teresa Palmer and Aimee Teegarden

Though set in an earlier time, the material covered in Leonie is cut from the same fabric as Bridge to the Sun, the 1961 biopic about Gwen Terasaki starring Carroll Baker as the headstrong Southern girl who married a Japanese diplomat and survived the horrors of life as an outsider in Japan during World War II. Leonie begins in 1901, when the Bryn Mawr graduate goes to work as the New York editor of the talented but still-unknown poet, reluctantly becoming his mentor, co-writer and devoted life partner. Abandoned when she becomes pregnant, she follows Yone (Shidô Nakamura from Clint Eastwood’s Letters From Iwo Jima) to Japan, understanding nothing of the language or culture, and after discovering that Yone already has a Japanese wife, she raises their son Isamu alone, earning a meager income as an English teacher. A firm believer that women ought to have the same rights, responsibilities and freedoms as men, Leonie fights an uphill battle at a time when interracial marriage is not only frowned on but forbidden in America and a social disgrace in Japan. The misery in her own relationship, the joy in her son’s progress—these elements of the story are told through letters to her best friend Catherine (Christina Hendricks, the sexpot office manager on Mad Men). It’s an awkward conceit, and a more traditional narrative form would have been more cinematically satisfying. But what Leonie learns, about customs, rituals and art, and what she teaches, about strength, independence and dignity, are a source of enlightenment for her friends, enemies and students. Especially the talisman she lives by: “When everything else fails, there is always the future.”

With no formal schooling, her son’s unconventional education makes him sort of an early child genius. He designs and builds his first entire house at age 10 for his family, which now includes a baby sister (father unknown). Using his American citizenship to attend school in New York, the boy learns that there are no boundaries and no borders in art. Small wonder that his mother’s influence gave him the drive to become one of the world’s most renowned sculptors and architects until his death in 1988. Alas, there are times when the life of a vagabond woman bridging the gaps between continents, cultures and wars proves too complex and too conflicted to keep the audience focused, which might explain why Leonie has been gathering dust on the editing-room shelf since 2010. Still, it’s a remarkable portrait of a brave, uncompromising woman who maintained her identity and spirit against all odds. Directed by Hisako Matsui and gorgeously shot in the rainy streets of New Orleans, the cherry orchards of Japan and the orange groves of California by acclaimed Japanese cinematographer Tetsuo Nagata, Leonie is a rich tapestry of cross-cultural revelations, released to the public at last, and a welcome addition to an otherwise dreary movie season.

rreed@observer.com

LEONIE

Running Time 102 minutes

Written by Hisako Matsui, David Wiener and Masayo Duus (biography)

Directed by Hisako Matsui

Starring Emily Mortimer, Kazuko Yoshiyuki and Shidô Nakamura

Based on director Marc Evans’s reminiscences about his own fellow high school students and their favorite teacher, Hunky Dory deals with the myriad obstacles faced by the young, idealistic, liberal-thinking teacher and her students. The faculty and staff disapprove, including one resentful social studies teacher who believes in discipline over lenience and a macho athletic director who scorns the time spent on play rehearsals instead of football practice.

The kids in the cast face broken marriages, alcoholic parents, budding homosexuality, racial tension and hormonal coming-of-age hurdles of every shape and size. The film unveils some teens of great promise—especially Aneurin Barnard as the class lothario and Darren Evans as an angry skinhead with a hauntingly sensitive voice (his rendition of “Everybody Knows” is a highlight). When a mysterious arsonist burns the sets and costumes, the school, the show and the teacher’s inspired ideas on education are all in danger. How the mystery is solved revives not only the school’s spirit, but Vi’s faith as well. The musical finale, staged outdoors under the moon, would make Shakespeare hum.

Ms. Driver’s Welsh accent sounds authentic, and the kids perform the pop-rock score with just the right amount of raw talent, tempered with a lack of Hollywood slickness. Not as corny as High School Musical and only half as clever and risky as Glee, it sort of lies there, somewhere in the middle, well-meaning but awkwardly structured and with no resistance to clichés. Hunky Dory has some pleasant things in it, but unfortunately, the funereal pace makes a snail look like a jackrabbit.

rreed@observer.com

HUNKY DORY

Running Time 110 minutes

Written by Laurence Coriat

Directed by Marc Evans

Starring Minnie Driver, Aneurin Barnard and Danielle Branch

Ann begins and ends in the auditorium of a Texas college where she is delivering a commencement speech, then segues into various stages of her life with wisdom, humor, toughness and pathos until you know everything there is to know about one of the most dynamic women in American political history. By the time it ends, you know what Texans mean when they say “We got everything you need here. If you want something we don’t have, then you don’t need it anyway.”

Ann was not the first woman governor of Texas. Back in the 1920s, there was Ma Ferguson, who took over her husband’s office when he was sent to prison for selling pardons. But Ann was the first one to make so many international headlines that some folks thought she lived in the White House instead of the State House. She had convictions from the start. Her mama was so tough that in the middle of childbirth, she reached out and wrung the neck of a live chicken for dinner. Her daddy told her she was smart enough to be anything she wanted to be in life, and she proved him right. Mama gave her grit. Daddy gave her a passion for dirty jokes (she tells one) and a taste for politics. At an early age, they moved to California, where she rode a bus to school and lived in harmony with “a confetti of kids” of every color and ethnic background. She married civil rights lawyer David Richards at 19, had four children, and made a serious effort to be a perfect hostess, mother, wife, chauffeur, nurse, cook and female role player, adopting the motto “If we rest, we rust.” As her reputation for having a salty sense of humor grew (she once went to a costume party as a tampon), so did her passion for vodka martinis. After 20 years of marriage, she had become a pretty terrific drinker but wasn’t having much fun as a housewife. Intervention, rehab, life in the fast lane, divorce—she did it all.
And then the real Ann Richards emerged from the ashes—a divorced, white-haired lady Democrat, 10 years sober, making news as the keynote speaker at Bill Clinton’s 1988 Democratic convention, running for governor in a state that was macho, conservative and Republican—and winning the gubernatorial election with humor, heart and hubris.

The center section of the play follows her through one hectic day in office, barking orders to her offstage secretary, tirelessly kicking off her shoes and circling her desk while offering opinions on everything (“Barbara Jordan has too much sense to go on the Supreme Court”) and dispensing sound advice on Social Security and abortion. All the while, she takes endless phone calls with her customary high-spirited, bordello-flavored bawdiness—everyone from President Clinton (“Hi, kid—just can’t get enough of me, can you?”) to powerful movers and shakers (“He couldn’t organize a circle jerk”). She shuffles receptions, organizes staff luncheons and stays of execution, signs border treaties to protect the Rio Grande, juggles preparations for everything from a live Larry King interview to a pro-choice march to a weekend family barbecue with her scattered children. The play is not merely a catalog of Ann’s life. It’s two hours in the life of one of the busiest, most popular and fascinating governors in American history.

She failed to win a second term. Texas was changing, like much of the South, and many Texans were enraged when she signed a concealed-weapons veto—and George Bush never forgave her for her public quip that he “was born with a silver foot in his mouth.” It was a black day for this yellow rose of Texas. But she picked herself up and moved on. “Life isn’t fair, but government should be.” The effect of her tenure was to change the state of Texas and cast the way its people saw each other and interpreted the law in a new light. And the voice of Ann Richards was not silenced.

She was 60, with no home, not much money, and a “questionable shelf-life expiration date” when she moved to New York, became a high-profile consultant on corporate boards, a fixture on TV talk shows and a public speaker whose presence at a podium guaranteed standing room only. In her 70s, she became one of the most popular women in the world until her death in 2006.

Ms. Taylor is a forceful, stunning tour guide through the terrain of Ann’s life. She has bombast and nuance, and is so riveting your mind refuses to wander. The author did not know the real Ann Richards, but she’s got the drawl down in marble. Sometimes it’s the drawl of their mutual friend Liz Smith, but it keeps the ballast going, like tennis balls at Wimbledon. I have no problem with the structure of the play, which leaps around in time, but my one small caveat is that in the governor’s-office middle section, there are too many telephone calls to keep track of who is on the other end of the line, and they drag on too long. Just when you want to return to the business of getting to know Ann Richards, the telephone rings again.

But in the end, all is forgiven. The anecdotes, public records, and interviews with family, business associates and friends pay off. Ann, carefully directed by Benjamin Endsley Klein, imparts a wealth of information in an orderly, entertaining manner, about a leader who had values, self-control, dignity and admirable fearlessness and, in my opinion, was never on the wrong side of anything. She was funny and smart and candid, with integrity unequaled by any other Texas governor before or after. Best of all, she taught us all that government “is not they. It’s you ... me ... and us. We’re all of us in this together.” Do not miss this wonderful play. Onstage, as in life, she remains just a little bit in a class by herself.

rreed@observer.com

This is a fantastical futuristic love story set in an alternate universe where two opposing worlds are pulled in opposite directions by two sets of gravity that are never explained. Down below, there’s an ordinary guy with an ordinary job named Adam (played by the talented, charming Jim Sturgess, who was the best thing in the pretentious catastrophe Cloud Atlas). Up above lives the girl of his dreams, a beauty named Eden (Kirsten Dunst). Years ago as teenagers, climbing through careful manipulation to two mountaintops in a feat thought to be somewhat miraculous, Adam and Eden managed to bridge the only solar system in existence with double gravity and fall in love. Adam changed Eden’s life when he showed her the secret place where the pink bees come from. (Don’t ask.) When the galaxy police discovered their forbidden friendship, they chased them both upside down back to their roots, resulting in a violent accident that left Eden with amnesia. But Adam has grown into a handsome young man whose sole obsession in life is to somehow find the love of his life again, unite their space units in the sky and live happily ever after. The rest of the movie falls into the delightful category of science fiction meets Walt Disney.

In a cruel take on the caste system of the next millennium, the two worlds are forbidden to meet, mingle or mix, but Adam has a scheme: Eden works for a multitasking mega-conglomerate called Trans World, a corporate power on the top half of the planet that extracts oil from the bottom half and converts it into overpriced energy nobody can afford. The only way to solve his problem, improve his life, find Eden and make worlds collide is for Adam to get a job with Trans World. Impossible. Never been done. But Adam, who lives down below among the working-class social outcasts without hope, outsmarts them all by inventing an anti-aging cream from the pink bee jelly. Trans World sends for him to steal his formula, and just when Eden’s memory begins to fade in, Adam’s luck begins to fade out. By this point, I was so reluctantly captivated by their romantic, heartfelt dilemma, I couldn’t wait to see how it all turned out.

The biggest problem with this movie is that it really lives up to its title. You have to get used to looking at everyone upside down, like wombats. Written and directed by Juan Solanas, the film’s special effects are dazzling, the set decorations and overall production design—oceans on the top and a vast landscape of skyscrapers and glittering freeways on the bottom—look opulent enough to marvel at and delicious enough to eat. Unfortunately, there are too many gaps in the narrative, and an excess of incoherent rules about the science of gravity. Still, there’s so much to absorb, you won’t have time to ask rude (but sensible) questions like “What is going on here?” and “What is this movie really about?” Walking on ceilings, with love scenes floating in space and an indestructible faith that alters the course of history, Mr. Sturgess and Ms. Dunst are a pure delight, giving Upside Down an emotional gravity out of their own allure.

Never mind what happens to the pink bee juice. You wouldn’t believe it if I told you.

rreed@observer.com

UPSIDE DOWN

Running Time 103 minutes

WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY Juan Solanas

Starring Jim Sturgess, Kirsten Dunst and Timothy Spall

This facile and contrived jumble of amateurish tedium begins like the famous cabaret ballad “Guess Who I Saw Today.” A woman passing a romantic bistro steps inside for a moment to buy her husband a piece of his favorite cake and spots a couple at a table for two in a secluded corner who are very much in love. The man is her husband. Before she can fully recover from the shock, she spots the girl in a nearby shop buying a rope to hang herself, follows her home and saves her life. The suicidal bimbo is so grateful that intimate details pour out—about their sex life, his miserable marriage and his plans for divorce. After enough time, enough scotch guzzled straight from the bottle and enough true confessions, it’s now the wife’s turn. Before night falls, wife Madelyn (Marcia Gay Harden) and mistress Lucy (Leonor Watling) not only bond but form a pact to give each other advice on their love lives. Madelyn seizes the opportunity to give Lucy every wrong piece of guidance that will destroy her. Everything backfires with the wit and babble of a brain-damaged mynah bird. The director is a rank amateur named Joan Carr-Wiggin, who also wrote the irredeemable screenplay.

When Lucy calls at night, stupidly not realizing it’s her own lover’s number, Madelyn pretends she’s on the phone with a man who loves her so much he has to hear her voice in the middle of the night. This unhinges her husband, Paul (Joseph Kell), until he loses all equilibrium. Now all three of them are miserable. Paul stops calling Lucy. Madelyn organizes all of her counsel to Paul’s mistress to wreck their relationship, but Lucy frustrates Madelyn by compromising her ideals to hold on to him. (“The worst thing about being the other woman is we never know when they’re dead. Who’s going to send us an invitation to the funeral?”) Obsessing about winning back Madelyn’s affection, Paul makes her breakfast and sends her flowers to the office where she is never seen doing any work.

Trying to get a grasp on this one-dimensional little exercise in chronic fatigue syndrome is like holding water in the palm of your hand with your fingers wide open. Madelyn accompanies Lucy, who wants to be an actress, to an audition and makes so much noise on her cellphone that she lands the starring role of King Lear. Then her mother dies, and while she’s waiting for the preacher to arrive, she meets and has sex with a total stranger whose father has just died in the same nursing home (the excellent Aidan Quinn, of all people, who has definitely had better luck elsewhere). “What do you do after sex with a stranger in a nursing home?” she asks. Don’t answer that. A third potential affair begins with a besotted co-worker whose wife thinks he’s gay when he sends her yellow roses. Chaos is heightened when everybody ends up at the same funeral. The movie grows sillier and more rancid with every new scene. I finally threw in the towel when Madelyn confesses she didn’t tell Paul about the night she didn’t come home after her mother died because he was being audited. Enough is enough, at both the Spanish Inquisition and If I Were You, which at times seem like the same thing.

It’s almost as impossible to guess what kind of fools would finance this drivel as it is to analyze what Marcia Gay Harden is doing in it. There’s an occasional smile line, like “If my family had given me that kind of encouragement, my whole life would have turned out differently ... I’d be the one sleeping next to Brad Pitt right now.” But mostly it just redefines the word “asinine.” Marcia Gay Harden never makes a wrong move, but this movie is so futile, one goes away convinced that the moves she makes are hardly worth making.

rreed@observer.com

IF I WERE YOU

Running Time 115 minutes

Written and Directed by Joan Carr-Wiggin

Starring Marcia Gay Harden, Leonor Watling and Joseph Kell

Agustín Souto is a successful pediatrician who lives a comfortable life with a wife of eight years and a posh apartment in Buenos Aires. But he’s moody and miserable to the point of catatonia, locking himself in his study and giving in to depression. When his wife, Claudia, fills out papers to adopt a baby, his mounting stress, gnawing insecurity and increasing boredom come to a head and he withdraws from the reality of his unfulfilled existence. While Claudia is away on a business trip, his twin brother, Pedro, arrives unexpectedly with terminal brain cancer and begs his brother to kill him. Pedro is a beekeeper who lives an isolated existence in the remote Tigre Delta, a series of islands and rivers negotiable only by small boats that once served as a holiday retreat for the rich and famous (think the Hamptons without SUVs) but is now a hotbed of crime populated by gangsters, outcasts and convicts. Agustín sees the chance to put a perfect plan in motion. It’s a shock to watch one Viggo drown another Viggo in a bathtub, but there he goes, escaping to the island where the two boys spent their childhood in hopes of taking over Pedro’s hives and honey, assuming his identity and starting a new life. Little does he know of the complex criminal activities Pedro was involved in, including kidnapping, a ransom to be divided between rival backwater thugs and murder. Between bee stings, he’s sought by crooks and cops alike, beaten, arrested, handcuffed, fingerprinted and tortured. Meanwhile, back in Buenos Aires, his anguished wife, who believes she’s now a widow, begins an investigation of her own that leads to the island and an eventual confrontation with the man she believes to be Pedro. Clearly, Agustín needs another plan—for survival. But as whom?

Despite all of the tangles and twists, this is a movie that is basically about not much of anything. A debut feature by writer-director Ana Piterbarg, there is almost no character development or cohesive narrative to be found. It is never clear why Agustín feels so doomed in his civilized metropolitan existence, why he wants to trade affluence and respect for the life of a filthy backwoods bum in a murky swamp, or why he adapts so easily (and eagerly) to his brother’s criminal past, adjusting quickly to a long list of betrayals, murders and dangerous characters at cross-purposes. An unceasing lack of suspense makes for dull viewing, with a good two-thirds of the movie consisting of wasteful subplots (such as an implausible romance with a duplicitous and very unattractive young river-trash beekeeper) to distract the viewer from the sad fact that nothing is really happening here, and repetitive scenes in which Agustín explores his surroundings with blank stares. I, for one, have come to expect so much more from the charismatic star.

Rugged, two-fisted Viggo has never been scruffier, or more mysterious. He has a quiet, concentrated intensity that informs all of his work, but is less effective in Spanish. He lived in Argentina for 10 years of his youth and has reportedly been searching for a film that would bring him back, all expenses paid. This is not the ideal fit. Still, it must be reiterated that as the whole thing mopes and slogs its way toward an empty, unsatisfactory finale, Viggo’s performance is the only payoff for the patience you will need to get through Everybody Has a Plan.

rreed@observer.com

EVERYBODY HAS A PLAN

Running Time 118 minutes

Written by Ana Piterbarg and Ana Cohan

Directed by Ana Piterbarg

Starring Viggo Mortensen, Soledad Villamil and Daniel Fanego

Ed Harris in Phantom.

Like George Washington, I cannot tell a lie. I confess that movies about submarines are not my cup of brine. A new one called Phantom is no exception. Worse, it’s about a Russian submarine. To be honest, I can rarely recall any film, on any subject, that made less sense. I found so much of it incomprehensible on so many levels that I’m not even sure I can tell you why.

Ed Harris is always worth watching, even when he mumbles, which he does a lot here. At least he doesn’t mutter in a Russian accent. Nor do any of the other hale, hearty (and unmistakably all-American) actors, all playing Russian sailors who look and sound like they just graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, but who are still desperately in need of subtitles. Of course, the confusion is due in no small part to a screenplay (by Todd Robinson, who also lamely directed) that is both labyrinthine and under-explained. Claiming to be based on actual facts surrounding the disappearance of a Cold War Soviet ballistic missile submarine in 1968 that has never been explained by either the U.S. or Russian governments, the film opens on a Soviet naval base (played by San Diego) where renowned Captain Demi (Mr. Harris) returns from 76 days at sea, haunted by nightmares, suffering from epilepsy and close to retirement. Suddenly his squadron command insists that he accept one final farewell assignment, piloting a derelict boat on a top-secret classified mission of mystery. The vessel is archaic and ready for scrap, an insult to a man of his fame and record of accomplishment, but it’s one of the last positions open in the shrinking Russian Navy, so he takes it. “You know what they call an old boat captain without a boat?” he asks. “Just another drunk.” But Demi is not just any old drunk. To the horror of his comrades at sea, he hates vodka.

Joining the 86-man crew on this mission to the unknown is a rogue KGB agent (David Duchovny) who pretends to be on some sort of photographic research project. The mission is clandestine enough, but things really get suspicious when the captain and his first officer (William Fichtner) discover that the new members of the crew have no military records. Others are listed as dead, and Mr. Duchovny and his followers are trained assassins. It would be nice to know what’s going on and why, but the script, which consists primarily of operations instructions, is practically indecipherable—made even more difficult because so much of the dialogue rarely rises above a whisper and is drowned out by cacophonous blasts of steam, explosions and music, barked over the P.A. system: “23 above—10 meters.” “Port starboard motors all stops—silent motor ahead, standard.” “Commence system testing of classified equipment for operational readiness—maintaining alert status!” “Salt water in the batteries makes chlorine gas—from the periscope depth raise the snorkel, prepare to ventilate!” Get the picture?

It takes hours to figure out that the Soviets have chosen Mr. Harris because they are convinced he will fail and never return. Fail at what? Why are they punishing a decorated Naval hero? And what dire plans do the rogue KGB agents have in store for American submarines as they head for the Pacific? As for the title, it seems that any warship equipped with a nuclear device while disguised as a vessel from another country is called a “phantom.” Thus the villains who strip Mr. Harris of his command and confiscate his vessel plan to turn American technology against us, making it impossible for the U.S. Navy to detect the identity of all enemy subs and consequently force American ships to run around in circles. Huh?

From this preposterous premise, it’s the film that runs around in circles. Believe me, I couldn’t make up an explanation like David Duchovny’s: “Have you heard of an American program called DarkStar? It’s a fully synchronized system of endo-atmospheric antiballistic missiles guided by highly accurate radar. If the Americans launch a first strike, all our land-base missiles will be taken out even before they can be fueled. It’s a radar ray that detonates atomic missiles in the ionosphere—electro-magnetic pulse weapons that can destroy the world.” Who will win? The KGB, with no incentive for peace? Or the captain with nightmares and epileptic seizures, who agrees with the Americans in the importance of the survival of humanity? Anyone for chess?

I don’t care if it’s Clark Gable and Burt Lancaster in Run Silent, Run Deep or the vastly more suspenseful German sub thriller Das Boot. There’s not a lot of ground to cover on a submarine set—the camera moves from the captain’s desk to the first mate’s bunk, from the engine room to the men drinking coffee in the mess, all the way to the watch command on the deck above—replete with wheels, valves, dials and shots through the wet lens of a periscope. Not much a set designer can do with that many pipes and metal folding chairs. Ed Harris is good when you can hear him, the miscast but interesting David Duchovny does a great job of exuding underwater poison as the monster who wants to cause a nuclear war, and a fine supporting cast including Johnathon Schaech, Jason Beghe, Lance Henriksen and Sean Patrick Flanery adds testosterone and brio. It’s not enough. To sustain tension, you need the kind of claustrophobic camera movement, high-strung talk and gritty character development that are badly needed in any submarine movie and are sadly missing in Phantom.

PHANTOM

Running Time 97 minutes

Written and Directed by
Todd Robinson

Starring Ed Harris, Julian Adams
and David Duchovny

rreed@observer.com