Word: alda
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
MALICE AND AMBITION do not adhere to Alan Alda's face. Alda the screenwriter forgot that Alda the actor looks like a waiter in Chinatown begging for a big tip--his squinting, ever-genial countenance belies the selfish, insatiable drive that defines his hero, Senator-on-the-make Joe Tynan. The words of the screenplay may fit, but Alda can't take up the Nice Man's Burden: Hawkeye can't play Macbeth...
...Alda's irrepressible personality overwhelms the role. Despite his intention to save his family and marriage, he has jumped on a treadmill of political power and, unlike George Jetson, he can't even call for Jane. Politics subsumes the rest of his life; even with women, only one who can be a political part in his life attracts...
Admittedly, Alda's concern is not Washington, but ambition--and how it seduces Joe Tynan, and how that seduction affects the people around him. Barbara Harris's Elie cannot accept political life, but neither will she part with her husband. Elie borders on the liberated, flapping her gums without taking a firm stand when faced with Tynan's indifference and infidelity. If Alda had lived up to his touted feminist credentials, Elie could not say, "All I ever wanted was for you to love me." She could go to college, or whatever, yet she remains a faithful and willing victim...
...Still, Alda has an instinct for intelligent comic dialogue, a willingness to engage hard issues and a sure touch for creating characters of all ages and genders. Better a jerry-built movie about solid people than the reverse...
...Alda's vision of the political scene very fresh. The film's breathless rehash of the G. Harrold Carswell case and its failure to acknowledge the active role of the post-Watergate press corps in Washington date it by a decade. The stale details of Director Jerry Schatzberg's grander set pieces - among them a predominantly white and middle-aged Democratic Convention - look like the '50s of Advise and Consent...