FFWD Weekly
Copyright © 1998 All Rights Reserved.
| FILM The Gingerbread Man The Gingerbread Man is set in present-day Savannah. Successful attorney Rick Magruder (Kenneth Branagh) has a passionate one-night stand with a beautiful waitress, Mallory Doss (Embeth Davidtz), that draws him deeply into her personal life. After he learns that Mallory is being stalked by her father Dixon (Robert Duvall), a deranged backwoods fundamentalist, Magruder finds himself in the midst of a life-threatening scenario set against the backdrop of an impending hurricane. He commits the ultimate mistake of having Dixon institutionalized for psychiatric evaluation. When Mallory's father escapes the asylum, Magruder finds himself on the run, as the lives of his children are threatened by the intensely disturbed man. His life becomes a nightmare of confusion and chaos, where survival is the only objective. When Magruder's children are kidnapped, the police are unwilling to help - largely a response to Magruder's recent successful defence of a criminal who shot a cop. The lawyer's life starts to painfully disintegrate as he begins to understand the true story behind the kidnapper's objective and realizes that nothing is as it seems. The Gingerbread Man is based on a short story by John Grisham - flavor of the decade in Hollywood - and directed by Robert Altman, whose 30 years of anti-studio-system films date back to the hilarious M.A.S.H. Though one would never think the two could mesh - their only link is that they both champion the cause of underdogs who are fighting the system - this film is a true testament to the power of possibilities of a well-done thriller. With countless losers in one of the most enduring genres, it is so satisfying to find an untraditional master like Altman do the formula thing and do it so successfully that one understands why the genre works so well in the first place. Altman gets steady performances from leads Branagh (Henry V, Hamlet) and Davidtz (the enslaved servant in Schindler's List), and his stellar supporting cast - Robert Downey Jr., Robert Duvall, Tom Berenger and Daryl Hannah - adds color. Like most Grisham stories, setting becomes part of the cast, and Savannah, with it's sultry Southern beauty and hanging Spanish moss, is no exception. The impending hurricane Geraldo serves as a wonderful metaphor for the violent human drama about to be unleashed. The Gingerbread Man does have some minor plot holes - as do all Grisham stories - yet most are stitched seamlessly together by Altman's precise timing and thorough attention to character. Like a thriller should, The Gingerbread Man frightens and thrills right to the end, and Altman's obvious control of his cast makes even the most arrogant of actors, Branagh, capable of eating humble pie. |