Turning John Farrow`s 1948 film noir ”The Big Clock” into a timely paranoid thriller set in the corridors of power of Washington, D.C., Roger Donaldson`s ”No Way Out” displays a giddy pleasure in bizarre plot twists as well as a taste for vividly drawn, large-scale human emotions. The combination of stylized storytelling and psychological realism often makes the movie seem at odds with itself, but when it works, it works very well.
”No Way Out” features a cast of characters, as well as a blindingly bright institutional look that could have been drawn from the Iran-Contra hearings. Kevin Costner, fresh from his Eliot Ness in ”The Untouchables,” is a bright young naval hero recruited to serve as a special aide to a cunning, charismatic secretary of defense, played in alternating bursts of energy and depression by Gene Hackman. With Costner`s new job comes the discovery that his new girlfriend, lanky Sean Young, is also his boss` mistress.
But this wild coincidence is only the opening gambit of the screenplay, written by Robert Garland with a freewheeling attitude toward the original material. No sooner has Costner and Young`s relationship begun to grow into something fine and beautiful than does Hackman discover that there is another man in his mistress` life and, in a fit of anger, accidentally pushes her over a balcony to her death.
It`s clearly time to apply a little of the old Washington art of the cover-up, and Hackman`s loyal legal counsel, a chillingly worshipful Will Patton, concocts an imaginative fantasy that casts a phantom Soviet agent, code-named ”Yuri,” as Young`s missing lover and presumed murderer. Claiming national security considerations, Patton is able to keep the investigation out of the hands of the police (the CIA`s criminal investigation department takes over) and Hackman`s name out of the case.
The complication now becomes the cluster of physical evidence–including a blurry Polaroid negative being slowly reconstructed by a computer–that will point to Costner as an enemy spy and a cold-blooded killer. As Costner races through the cinder-block halls of the Pentagon, searching for some way to clear himself and bring the real killer to justice, dozens of computer monitors project the inexorable progress of the photo restoration process, bringing a face–a face that will immediately be recognizable as his–into sharper and sharper focus.
These intricate plot twists–as well as a number of others that can`t be revealed without damaging the film`s entertainment value–strongly suggest the `30s and `40s filmmaking style that produced the original ”The Big Clock.” They belong to a time when the general run of movies was more about stories than about moods and more about the dynamics of storytelling than about the inner propulsions of psychologically complex characters. These are classical techniques, and they yield a classical pleasure–the pleasure of being carried along by a narration, of watching as the wildly improbable is transformed, through the wily craft of the writer and the director, into the believable and even likely.
But Donaldson is a modern-minded director, one more accustomed to following out the inner logic of a character than to tracing the twistings and turnings of an imposed plot. In his 1981 ”Smash Palace,” made in his native New Zealand, Donaldson allowed the shape of the film to be wholly determined by the emotional crests of his protagonist, a man driven mad by his wife`s decision to leave him.
In ”No Way Out,” he tries to find a similar psychological motor at the heart of the action and isn`t quite able to bring it off. The supporting characters are powerfully drawn, and Donaldson gives his actors a great deal of room to invent and maneuver: Young, as the pleasure-loving mistress, has the role of her career, moving through a smoothly paced transition from an initial cynicism to a full-bodied, natural exuberance. And Hackman is able to bring some shades of vulnerability to his usual charm and assurance, suggesting some of the isolation and helplessness that comes to a man in a supreme position of power.
But it`s Costner`s rage and anxiety that must carry the core of the action, and the actor isn`t quite up to the responsibilities forced upon him by his director`s approach. Costner is cool and stiff–more Gary Cooper than the extroverted, James Cagney-type the role requires–and his feelings aren`t accessible enough to ensure our complete identification. Young has the gifts
–of vivacity and transparency–that Costner lacks, and her early disappearance from the film leaves an emotinal gap that Costner is never able to fill.
”No Way Out,” perhaps, is a ”thing” movie–one built around guns, cars, computer screens and those gleaming, ominous corridors of the Pentagon
–that has been filmed as a ”people” movie–one built around actors, their actions and reactions. At times, Donaldson`s approach gives the film a depth and power far beyond the natural range of the material; at other times, it frustrates the workings of the sleek machinery that must be the center of any functional thriller. ”No Way Out” emerges, paradoxically, as a film that is better than it has to be and not as good as it ought to be, but there is skill here, as well as an admirable willingness to try something new.
”NO WAY OUT”
(STAR)(STAR)(STAR)
Directed by Roger Donaldson; written by Robert Garland, from the novel ”The Big Clock” by Kenneth Fearing; photographed by John Alcott; production designed by Dennis Washington; edited by Neil Travis; music by Maurice Jarre; produced by Laura Ziskin and Robert Garland. An Orion Pictures release; opens Aug. 14 at the Water Tower and outlying theaters. Running time: 1:54. MPAA rating: R. Violence, profanity.
THE CAST
Tom Farrell………………………Kevin Costner
David Brice………………………Gene Hackman
Susan Atwell………………………Sean Young
Scott Pritchard………………………Will Patton
Senator Duvall………………………Howard Duff
Sam Hesselman………………………George Dzundza
