True Grit

By RICHARD SCHICKEL

HIDE IN PLAIN SIGHT Directed by James Caan Screenplay by Spencer Eastman

It is easy to think of James Caan as just another pretty face: a pleasant, inoffensive actor who is just right for light entertainments like Chapter Two. It is brave enough for him to play the leading role that of an inarticulate factory workerin Hide in Plain Sight, since it is the kind of small, sober film no agent would regard as a good career move." But this is also Caan's debut as a director. To choose this true story of a man trying to find and then recover his children, who have been abducted by no less an institution than the U.S. Government, shows real courage. Both Caan's performance, which is low-key and well observed, and his direction, which is similar in spirit, more than justify his choice. This is a consistently engrossing film on several levels.

It enters a milieu, that of working-class life, that the movies often bypass. Thomas Hacklin lives in Buffalo and works for a tire factory. His car is dilapidated, and the house his wife and kids inhabit (he is divorced) is, at best, humble. Life for him is a few beers with the boys after work, a Saturday-night dance at the union hall and a little amateur baseball on Sunday afternoon. As director, Caan reveals the character with a sympathy that never patronizes. As an actor, he shows him as a good-natured fellow sustained by simple loyalties. Hacklin had uncomplainingly done his time in the service, just as he now uncomplainingly does his time at the factory, sustained by an unexamined trust in family, friends and country. He is a victim benignly unaware of his victimization.

Then his ex-wife marries a small-time Mafia hood who is persuaded by the Justice Department to inform on his colleagues. He is promised a new life and identity in return for his testimony. One night the crook, his bride and Hacklin's children (Heather Bicknell, Andrew Fenwick) are spirited away. The Government not only refuses to tell Hacklin what has become of his children, it blocks his efforts to find them. The conspiracy is expensive and sophisticated; Hacklin is poor and simple. But Caan refuses to heighten this classic confrontation between soulless bureaucracy and the individual who has no weapons on his side. Dramatically, the underplaying of Hacklin's frustrations may be a mistake; one yearns for a scene in which Caan busts loose, gives full vent to his pain and anger. Yet there is something touching in his patience, his refusal to generalize his case into an indictment of society. The discontinuity between the care the Government is willing to lavish on a helpful hood and its indifference to a good but anonymous citizen who is impeding one of its grand designs comes across more strongly through understatement. So does the point that a father, when threatened, can be as fierce in his love for his children as any mother.

The picture is very well played at every level. Jill Eikenberry as Hacklin's second wife manages to make an impact playing an essentially shy, sweet woman. Indeed that is pretty much the way of this film. It tugs gently at one's sleeve. There is not a more satisfactory moment to be seen now on any screen than Hacklin's reunion with his children. One does not cheer, but one leaves the theater feeling just fine.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.