An all but unbeatable tsk movie from Roland Joffé. (Shot of a cart-pulling beast of burden with its ribs showing through its hide. Tsk. Shot of a noseless leper. Tsk.) A crane-powered consciousness-raising project about the slums of Calcutta, it steers clear of the spiritual content of the story (taken from the Dominique Lapierre best-seller) and gravitates instead in the direction of a quasi-gangster film about the fight against an iron-fisted protection racket as waged by a humble rickshaw driver, a do-gooding Irish divorcee, and a nihilistic drop-out doctor from Texas ("I believe in the Dallas Cowboys, most successful sports franchise of the modern era!"). Those razor-and-wet-towel-wielding thugs do nothing to elevate the spirituality but certainly elevate the number of tsks. The director's habitual glancing style, while it sweeps up plenty of informational scraps about the milieu (in somewhat washed-out color), fails to make the most of the drama -- not just the emotional high points, but every laborious stairstep on the way. Patrick Swayze, as the burnt-out case who finds renewal after losing a little girl in slow-motion surgery in the opening scene, must have felt flattered to be offered such a role. Or anyway he damn well should. (1992) — Duncan Shepherd
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