Paul Schrader brings his typically cold touch to a typically hot topic -- the kidnapping of the California newspaper heiress by the Symbionese Liberation Army -- and produces a typically unaccountable absence of sizzle. Heretofore, this had been a topic which only the lowliest exploitationist (cf. Abduction, 1975), or one of TV's unashamed docu-dramatists (The Ordeal of Patty Hearst, 1979), would dare touch with a ten-foot pole. Schrader, meanwhile, has fashioned a pole of sorts out of an invincibly subjective viewpoint, bits of autobiographical narration ("I grew up in a sheltered environment, supremely self-confident"), fantasies and flashbacks, Expressionistic sets and lighting, slow motion and distortionist camera lenses, and a booming black voice of almost godlike power and authority ("This don't look good for you at all, Patty," "Take your clothes off, Patty," etc.). In spite of all this, or more likely in consequence of it, Schrader still falls several feet short of actual touch. Since addled incomprehension is the adopted point of view in the movie, we might understandably come out of it with a fuzzier picture of the subject than we had when we went into it. With Natasha Richardson. (1988) — Duncan Shepherd
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