Slipstream

Movie Man Mike returns with a DVD review

Slipstream (D). With a cast including John Turturro, Christian Slater, Kevin McCarthy, Michael Clarke Duncan, Jeffrey Tambor, and Anthony Hopkins, you would expect something great. Don’t. Poor Anthony Hopkins. What was he thinking? He wrote and directed this film. Maybe on paper the story was better than it was on the screen, but I had trouble with this one. The film is supposedly about a writer who is called upon to rewrite a script after one of the actors dies during the shooting of the film. As the rewrite gets underway, the writer seems to lose touch with the reality of what’s in the script and what’s real. Had I not read this synopsis prior to seeing the film, I am not sure I would have gotten that out of the movie. From the very outset, the film is disjointed and jerky and comes across as if someone has already lost touch with reality. Therein lies the problem, because after the actor played by Christian Slater dies during filming, the screenplay writer played by Anthony Hopkins is called in for the rewrite. The disjointed, jerky, dreamlike sequences just continue while Hopkins plays a befuddled old man. The only redeeming aspects of the film are that there are some nice performances by Turturro, Slater and Duncan, but those performances hardly make up for the rest of the film. Don’t make the mistake of renting this one like I did.