Everything is on open view in sleazy `Sliver’

Editor’s note: Maine Style feature writers Alicia Anstead and Dale McGarrigle continue their occasional series of point-counterpoint movie reviews with “Sliver,” which opened Friday.

Anstead: For weeks before “Sliver” was released, we were taunted by the come-on “You like to watch, don’t you.” But, frankly, I didn’t like watching Sharon Stone, William Baldwin, and Tom Berenger in this psychosexual mystery about a woman who’s looking for a new lease on life and takes an apartment in a long-and-slender Manhattan high rise with a history of weird deaths.

And it wasn’t just the over-hyped sex scenes between Stone and Baldwin that weren’t very thrilling to watch. There’s not a character that really pulls us into the movie’s message about the shocking stimulation of secretly watching real-life dramas. If anything is fascinating about this film, it’s the various vantage points of cameras, and how high-tech equipment has taken peeping toms out of the bushes and put them in front of computer monitors and telescopes.

McGarrigle: But “Sliver” doesn’t aspire to be a great Hitchcock. It’s recycled “Basic Instinct”: same basic plot, same scriptwriter, same nude actress. If that formula worked for you last summer, it’ll work again. It worked for me, in that I had some sliver of doubt as to the killer up until the end.

The central theme of “Sliver,” written in capital neon letters, is that we’re all voyeurs. (How else to explain the success of reality-based TV?) It leaves moviegoers feeling sleazy, but then the film hadn’t been publicized as a sweethearted date movie. “Sliver” viewers got sex and violence, not “Benny and Joon.”

Anstead: Right. Forget about any engaging dialogue or acting between the sex and violence. These characters have lower IQs than the number of floors in their sky-high apartment building. Baldwin’s character, Zeke, can’t even come up with a better pickup line than: “Listen, do you work out?” And poor Stone just can’t get beyond roles that fixate on her underwear — or lack thereof. In “Sliver,” Zeke challenges Stone’s character, Carly, to remove her underwear in the middle of a restaurant. She does it, but so what? It’s neither a skill nor a scene that has any particular value. As an actress, she should follow the cliched advice she gives Zeke at the end of the film and “get a life.”

The supporting roles — especially by the folks in the hokey scenes that Zeke’s hidden cameras follow into private homes — don’t add any interesting side shows. The first couple of peek-a-boo shots may be funny, but the several dozen that follow inspire the question: Who cares what these people are doing in their bathrooms?

Some great shots of the street activities in New York City would have made the film more visually exciting, but that surely would have meant cutting one or two of the scenes in which we see Stone walking into a building, sleeping on a couch or doing her laundry.

McGarrigle: Sure, as an actress, Stone is at best acrobatic and limber. Her next project should be a remake of “The Bells of St. Mary,” in the Ingrid Bergman role — which would allow her to stay clothed. But she makes use of all her attributes to be the most sympathetic of the three main characters.

Also Baldwin showed his most range while working out on a weight machine. Still he offered some shadings in his role as the sometimes charmy, mostly creepy Zeke.

Tom Berenger, who has made the quickest slide from romantic lead (“The Big Chill”) to character actor (most every film since) in movie history, is the best actor of the three. His Jack Landsford is involving, even if he does move briskly from cocky, past-tense author to gun-wielding psychopath.

Anstead: At its meatiest, “Sliver” is scant on plot and acting. It is based on Ira Levin’s best-selling novel of the same name, but the resemblance is pretty slim. Synthesized music by Howard Shore doesn’t add much bulk either. More than anything else, “Sliver” is psychoschlock, about characters who need to get real lives and actor who need to get real jobs.

McGarrigle: While not great, “Sliver” is an enjoyable way to while away a couple of hours. It’s not riveting, but it is briskly paced and action-packed. It’s not for fans of British mysteries, but it is enough of a challenge for those who enjoy thrillers. Lower your expectations, check your disbelief at the door, and go for the ride.