Word: mcconaughey
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Dates: during 1996-1996
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...That leaves two films whose top-billed actors are women. But even Helen Hunt wouldn't say she's the main reason for Twister's success. And Sandra Bullock, who has her name above the title in A Time to Kill, plays in support of hunk du jour Matthew McConaughey. It's a lousy year for movie women when the meatiest femme role--the comedy, the pathos, the earrings!--is Nathan Lane's in The Birdcage...
directed by Joel Schumacher starring Matthew McConaughey at area theaters...
...glistening people look as if they shower with Vaseline--the story is simple, yet stirring: rednecks rape a black girl; the girl's father, Carl Lee (Samuel L. Jackson), retaliates with murder; he goes on trial in a racially volatile atmosphere. Enter his idealistic young lawyer, Jake (Matthew McConaughey); his mentor, Lucien (Donald Sutherland); the ruthless prosecutor (Kevin Spacey); and a Klan member or two (e.g. Kiefer Sutherland)--the story's ready-made. Sandra Bullock weaves her way through the story as Jake's indispensable assistant...
...actors ease for the most part into the set, often flat characters that surround the charged plot line, with occasional exceptions. Lawyer Jake, despite death threats or a torched house, persists in defending, against all logic, and McConaughey's boyish good looks and exquisite hair carry him through admirably. Yet it is often more compelling to watch Kiefer Sutherland, a brother of a slain redneck, encountering evil greater than himself during his Klan warm-up meeting, or Chris Cooper (again as a sheriff, markedly different from his "Lone Star" role) grimacing his way through shock and pain...
Schumacher's timing was perfect. Hungry for a star who didn't display a grungy ambivalence about fame and adulation, the media couldn't resist the hunky newcomer, proclaiming him heir to Cruise, Newman and Brando. The campaign was ably abetted by McConaughey, whom the camera adores and who seems happy to project old-style Hollywood magic. Suddenly McConaughey was everywhere. "I've sat here for six years and not seen anything like this," says Interview editor Ingrid Sischy, who put him on her August cover. "This is the arrival of a Hollywood star...