Bloodshot

By Frank Rich

EYES OF LAURA MARS

Directed by Irvin Kershner

Screenplay by John Carpenter and David Zelag Goodman

Whatever its other merits, a movie thriller cannot go anywhere without an exciting story. This may seem an obvious point, but somehow it is lost on Hollywood's more headstrong producers. Two years ago, Robert Evans unveiled Marathon Man, a showy production that hopped all over the world without ever arriving at a credible or coherent plot development. Not to be outdone, Producer Jon Peters has now brought forth Eyes of Laura Mars. Like Marathon Man, this film is long on trendy settings, high-priced actors and vicious murders, but devoid of narrative thrills. Peters is betting--incorrectly--that audiences will be too distracted by the movie's surface glitter to notice the vacuum underneath.

There might have been a decent picture here. Set in the high-fashion demimonde of Manhattan, the film has an intriguing heroine in Laura Mars (Faye Dunaway), a chic photographer who shoots in Helmut Newton's sadomasochistic style. The film's premise, though farfetched, also has possibilities. Laura, it turns out, is a psychic whose nightmare visions of ghoulish murders actually come true. But the script doesn't develop its basic materials. The aesthetic and ethical issues raised by Laura's photographs are never worked into the story; the heroine's psychic powers have no bearing on the solution of the murder case. Laura Mars quickly devolves into a prosaic whodunit with a gyp of an ending. What could have been a classy thriller like Klute or Don't Look Now seems instead an endless episode of Charlie's Angels.

While forestalling the climax, the film makers try to amuse us with voyeuristic glimpses of their heroine's glamorous world. They don't get even these details right. In Laura Mars, all fashion models are bimbos who speak in kootchy-koo voices. A photo exhibit opening at a SoHo gallery attracts more crowds and press coverage than a movie premiere.

Director Irvin Kershner's style is no less out-of-touch. He accompanies the eye-gouging murders with creepy music and lighting. The film's obligatory romantic interlude, between Laura and a detective (Tommy Lee Jones), is set to violins. The acting is out of a '50s B movie. In the effort to create as many suspects as possible, Kershner has directed most of his cast to come on as twitchy psychopaths. Brad Dourif, playing an ex-con chauffeur, manages to seem even more bonkers here than he did as an inmate in One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest.

As the film's only ostensibly solid citizen, Jones shows at least some restraint. Then again, anyone would look calm playing opposite Dunaway. With her bulging, teary eyes and fluttery voice, this actress is a one-woman band of neurotic gestures. It is a tiresome performance that will be particularly grating on anyone who has seen the mannerisms previously in Chinatown and Network. Dunaway does, however, have the only credible line in the movie. It occurs midway through her love scene, when she announces, "I'm completely out of control." -- Frank Rich

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