Word: baldwin
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MIAMI BLUES. Alec Baldwin and Jennifer Jason Leigh are two smart, engaging actors, and they work beautifully as mismatched souls in the down-market world of Miami vice. Writer-director George Armitage illuminates this rogue comedy with stylish fun and splashy violence. A definite don't miss...
Three characters, all certified originals. The first, Frederick J. Frenger Jr. (Alec Baldwin), is also certifiable. "A blithe psychopath," in the words of Charles Willeford's spiffy source novel, Junior is fresh out of a California prison and primed for Miami vice. His M.O.: robs crooks who have robbed other people. Thinks he's smart; isn't. Has grousy temper; will break the finger of an unsuspecting airport Hare Krishna. Can compose haiku during his heists -- "Breaking, entering/ The dark and lonely places/ Finding a big gun" -- but can't choreograph a decent holdup. Junior is an engaging monster...
With its slums abutting the sea, its raffish hoodlums and its Day-Glo deco decor, Miami is the city to which all Jonathan Demme films aspire. Married to the Mob ended up there, long after Baldwin had played his memorable cameo as a Mafia stiff. Funny thing is that Demme only produced Miami Blues; his colleague from the Roger Corman B-movie Borstal of the '70s, George Armitage, is the writer-director. Funnier still, Armitage has one-upped his old pal. Whereas Demme's movies punctuate flaky comedy with explosions of violence, Miami Blues blends the two moods...
Armitage has fun with Miami but never makes fun of it. He just stands off at an ironic distance, appreciating the blazing incongruity of an aquacade at a restaurant or a maimed thief pocketing his severed fingertips. The actors too come at their roles energetically, not condescendingly. Baldwin plays Junior with a goofy grin and the scheming intensity of a small mind spinning its wheels and getting nowhere. Ward finds Hoke's integrity down at his heels. And Leigh, a gifted chameleon who deserves stardom, can wring pathos just by reading a recipe for vinegar pie or walking...
...Then Baldwin and the Whiffles -- an Ur-nerd quartet in plaid cummerbunds and smug smiles -- launch into a rendition of Sh-Boom at the charm-school talent show, and Cry-Baby takes off to parody paradise. It becomes a real musical (new songs, production numbers) and a careering melodrama: Grease with grit. Cliches collide, and so do jalopies; lightning strikes; the jailhouse rocks. Lovers lose themselves in a French-kissing dance that would have been banned on Bandstand...