Word: keaton
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...Multiplicity," starring Michael Keaton and Andie McDowell, is launched from a simple (yet unbelievable) premise. But it is Keaton's manic style and a tolerably clever script that make...
...beginning of the movie is weighted down with some all-too-familiar problems. Keaton plays Doug Kinney, a construction worker unable to juggle an unforgiving job, the demands of his family and his own needs. Even as he struggles to make time for his kids, his wife (McDowell) wants to go back to work, putting even more of the day care burden on him. At work, his underlings are incompetent, his boss accepts no excuses and his despicable co-worker is all too happy to work nights and weekends...
...Keaton excels at this type of frenzied, over-the-top comedy, and he's at his best when two or three of his manifestations volley the dialogue back and forth between them. Unfortunately, this does leave McDowell somewhat out of the loop; she's given the thankless role of the confused wife, struggling, crying and finally running away while Doug clumsily deals with his strange identity crisis...
...comic conceit of the confusion caused by look-alikes has been used everywhere from Shakespeare's A Comedy of Errors to "The Patty Duke Show" to "Parent Trap." But the technology in "Multiplicity" is seamless, and Keaton does a good job of giving each of his xeroxes a distinct (if somewhat stereotyped) personality. There's the first, harried Doug, who loses serious likeability points for suggesting his wife quit her new job because even with two of him, he can't handle taking care of the kids. The second Doug, who takes over the construction job, becomes macho and tough...
Some silent stars, like Buster Keaton, swam outside the Hollywood mainstream. Fairbanks, though, was Hollywood--in his itch for control (he produced his films and wrote most of them), in his loving to be loved, in his taste for pricey grandeur. He ordered the biggest sets (Douglas Fairbanks in Robin Hood), the highest budgets (The Thief of Bagdad), the first epic film shot wholly in Technicolor (The Black Pirate). At times this largeness slowed the films' pace; you wait an hour for the stunts and the fun to kick...