Fred Schepisi's filmization of John Guare's stage play is a nervous and brittle New York comedy, of limited export value, about a high-rolling art dealer and his wife who let into their apartment a bleeding young black man claiming to be a mugging victim, as well as a college chum of their son, as well as the son himself of Sidney Poitier, as well as a production assistant on his father's screen adaptation of Cats. (All false, except for the blood.) The movie, already more dated than the play, proposes to take the pulse and the temperature of New York City in the Eighties, something like Bonfire of the Vanities on a more modest scale. Although duly "opened up" from the stage, particularly to admit some aerial views of the world's most famous skyline (the city-as-dramatis-persona, don't you know), it remains nailed to the boards by the sound and pace of its dialogue. Stockard Channing and Donald Sutherland are reasonably agile within the satirical strictures of their roles. And Will Smith enunciates beautifully and moves gracefully, especially when whipping together and serving up a Little Something for supper. With Bruce Davison, Mary Beth Hurt, Anthony Michael Hall. (1993) — Duncan Shepherd
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