Word: onscreen
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Translating a written tale into TV drama has its pitfalls. Excessive fidelity to the text can emphasize a story's origins on the page. Departure for drama's sake can suggest that what's onscreen came solely from a script. Those perils are present in 90-minute video anthologies -- something of an endangered species these days, like westerns -- that HBO and Showtime coincidentally offer for late-summer viewing. (Both debut Aug. 19.) Differently flawed, they nonetheless make for more satisfactory evenings than network reruns...
...that the plot is complicated is a severe understatment. Refusing to cater to the audience's lowest common denominator, The Two Jakes forces the viewer to pay very close attention while the plot unfolds onscreen. Towne returns to his former scripting glory (with a little bit of help from Nicholson) after sinking to an all-time low with the recently released Days of Thunder. The Two Jakes is a great detective story, with all the clues, (intelligent) action, and philosophical narrative voice overs that accompanies the best in the genre. But more than that, the film is about persons...
...prevalence of onscreen sexual assault is all the more remarkable because censors in India are generally quite prudish. Lovemaking and even kissing scenes are banned. Yet the censors regard rape as permissible as long as the camera conceals as much as it reveals. Says Vimla Farooqui, a women's activist in New Delhi: "Rape scenes are used for an ugly kind of titillation...
...control, a role filled here by Broderick's character. By right, the film's focus should be on Broderick, but Brando usurps that focus. The action sequences involving Broderick as a result appear banal and contrived in comparison to watching the sheer genius of Brando's acting unfold onscreen...
...stars' shortcomings are especially noticeable, and especially regrettable, in light of the more successful performances of many in the supporting cast. Unknowns like Jack Gilpin, as a yuppie hostage, and Philip Bosco, as a rule-obsessed bus driver, make the most of their few moments onscreen...