Word: beresford
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Directed by Bruce Beresford...
Director Bruce Beresford's tone is cool and shadowy -- like Miss Daisy's fine old house. Hoke is introduced into it by her son Boolie (Dan Aykroyd, displaying full credentials as an actor), when at 72 Miss Daisy careers her car into a neighbor's yard. She has objections, suspicions. She harbors -- yes -- more racial prejudice than she has ever been forced to admit...
...cannot speak too highly of the subtlety that two great actors, Freeman and Tandy, bring to their roles. Or of the faith that Beresford places in their ability to convey large emotions through an exchange of glances in a rearview mirror. Or of his trust in a script that speaks most eloquently through silences and indirection. All, finally, have placed their faith in the audience's ability to read their delicately stated work with the responsiveness it deserves. It would be a shame to fail them...
...make Selleck feel even more at home, it seems Beresford has brought actors James Farentino, disinterred from his TV Dynasty days, and William Daniels, a casualty from the cancellation of the series St. Elsewhere to make guest appearances. Farentino, plays a pushy police lieutenant who does not believe in Nina's alibi, and though he gives a fair presentation of the script, his performance is uninspired. Daniels plays Selleck's whining publishing agent, but all he does is transfer his St. Elsewhere character to the screen. The cast is so familiar, in fact, that if you blink real fast...
...only is Beresford's script guilty of being mundane, it is also sloppy. In deference to U. S.-Soviet glasnost relations, the writers have deftly swayed away from any direct attacks on the Russian government. Porizkova's Nina does not come from the Soviet Union, but is rather supposed to be a native of Romania. But the temptation of using the KGB as an obvious foil to the good American guys seems to have been irresistible, and so we see it re-enacted again. Once more, in the spirit of James Bond and other spy thrillers, we see a plot...