Word: scripting
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These moments stick out only because the film normally progresses so smoothly. On that score the actors and crew deserve congratulation. But their streamlined performance highlights a script that is smooth going on downright flat...
...sake of respected British author Ian McEwan's screenplay, prepared stoically to endure the vicissitudes of Macaulay Culkin, commercialized American cinema and Hollywood's uncomprimising compromisal of artistic integrity. They will be disappointed. Contrary to expectations, it's the director and actors who make the most of a lukewarm script...
McEwan fleshes out this skeletal scenario with a hearty dose of psychobabble. Freudian guilt complexes, Buddhist cycles of reincarnation and wells of spiritual self-empowerment roam the script untamed. But eclectic psychodramatic conceits are no substitute for substance...
...denunciations of the decadent West in general and the U.S. in particular. The conclusion was strictly business. The last batch of hostages was traded for some of the Great Satan's slickest weapons, inventoried by Oliver North and routed to Iran through Israel with Ronald Reagan still reading the script: "No arms for hostages...
...Altman's impatience with conventional narrative animates his film, so does his patience with and trust of actors. He's always been a man who encourages his performers to riff on a script's themes, and they respond with astonishing brio. "This movie was like a symphony, with Bob serving as the conductor," says one of his featured players, Matthew Modine. "It created a tremendous amount of pressure because you have to understand where you're at, when you come in, and what your role is. It's like a musician standing in front of these two big timpani drums...