Modestly budgeted revenge tale (somewhat thin, hollow, tinny sound) about a British ex-con, just out of prison after a nine-year hitch, who comes to L.A., tossing around uncomprehended slang such as "nicked" and "scarpered," to look into his daughter's death. The resurrection of the Terence Stamp character from Kenneth Loach's Poor Cow, or at any rate the resurrection of old decolorized footage from Poor Cow, is not apt to strike a chord with very many of today's moviegoers -- even those who might actually have seen that 1967 film. But the contrast, in any case, between the gorgeous Stamp of the Sixties, with his Mark Antony haircut, and the white-haired balding Stamp of the present, will have an impact without any need of prior knowledge. And Peter Fonda, although incapable of acting his way out of a paper bag, makes a fitting adversary, a show-biz marginal who clings nostalgically to his Golden Moment in the Sixties: "It was just '66, and early '67." The splintering of the action into a montage-y, jump-cutty, nonsequential narrative line -- as if director Steven Soderbergh had wanted to out-Roeg Nicolas Roeg -- is a little annoying at first, a little reminiscent of the unavailing nervous mannerisms of his Out of Sight. But soon a purpose can begin to be glimpsed, a point can gainfully be grasped: namely, splintering as a shortcut to unity-of-action (contradictory as that may sound), reminding us all along the way of the earlier steps (the plane, the motel, England in the Sixties) on the predetermined path, how one thing led to another. The few flash-forwards and images of fantasy do not fit so well with that purpose, but the climax, when the avenger belatedly recognizes his own role in the emerging pattern of tragedy, fits perfectly. Lesley Ann Warren, Luis Guzman, Barry Newman. (1999) — Duncan Shepherd
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