Lack of focus clouds Mandoki’s ‘Angel Eyes’

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In theaters

ANGEL EYES, 104 minutes, R, directed by Luis Mandoki, written by Gerald DiPego.

The problem with Luis Mandoki’s “Angel Eyes” is that it wants to have it all.

It wants to be a cop thriller, a drama, a melodrama, a supernatural thriller, a romance and a tear-jerker – yet since it never chooses which, audiences are forever caught in its maddening haze.

The film is difficult to get a handle on until the very end, when Mandoki reveals “Angel Eyes” to be less a movie driven by its characters and its story than a piece of marketing driven to please every imaginable adult demographic. None of this is to say that the film doesn’t have its pleasures. In fact, if several key scenes were left on the editing room floor, “Angel Eyes” would have found its focus as a good date movie.

As it stands, it’s a fair rental.

The film stars Jennifer Lopez as Sharon Pogue, a Chicago cop whom we first see rushing to a freshly demolished car and begging the bloody passenger – whom we don’t see – to stay with her. The screen fades to black without answering whether the passenger lives or dies.

A year later, the film finds Sharon running after a group of men who just shot a handful of her co-workers. After accidentally dropping her gun, Sharon is wrestled to the ground by one of the thugs and is about to get blown away herself when she’s suddenly saved by a stranger in a green trench coat.

The film’s mystery doesn’t stem from whether this man is the same person Sharon saved in the film’s opening car wreck; audiences know he is even if the characters don’t know it yet. Instead, since “Angel Eyes” is inspired by “The Sixth Sense” and “City of Angels,” the mystery swirls around whether the stranger, Catch (Jim Caviezel), has anything to do with the angel of the film’s title.

Tossed into this mix is Sharon’s relationship with her physically abusive father (Victor Argo), but since that goes nowhere, the film’s success hinges on Sharon’s relationship with Catch, which has its moments.

Lopez and Caviezel, both good actors, have an easy chemistry that strengthens the film even when it’s at its most base and evasive; what interest the film generates – and sometimes it’s a fair amount – is in large part because of them.

Grade: C+

On video and DVD

ANTITRUST, 115 minutes, PG-13, directed by Peter Howitt, written by Howard Franklin.

Peter Howitt’s “Antitrust” stars Tim Robbins as Gary Winston, a bespectacled, boyish billionaire with a bad haircut who is so clearly meant to mirror Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, it’s surprising the film’s producers haven’t been sued for libel.

This isn’t the first time Gates has taken a public pie in the face; in February 1998, he literally took one while visiting European Union officials in Brussels. But this time out, the results are sloppier and more embarrassing than anything he experienced while wiping cream from his eyes in Belgium.

The film follows Milo Hoffman (Ryan Philippe), a brilliant young computer geek recruited by Winston’s multizillion-dollar company NURV – Never Underestimate Radical Vision – to write the code for Synapse, Winston’s great global communications system that promises to “link every computer, television and radio in the world!”

But when Milo gets into the company and starts rooting around (think Tom Cruise in “The Firm”), it soon becomes clear that NURV has had the nerve to murder a whole host of independent software developers. The reason for the slaughter? Apparently, Winston and his company haven’t had an original thought in years; in their desperate attempt to stay on top, they’ve killed these developers for their groundbreaking work.

“Antitrust” is a perfect example of what happens when a director and screenwriter don’t fully understand the world they’re trying to depict.

Instead of offering audiences an insider’s view into an intriguing world, Howitt (“Sliding Doors”) and Franklin are able to give audiences only a sensational glimpse.

Worse, their film is bogged down with so many ridiculous touches – such as Milo’s “catastrophic allergy to sesame seeds,” which is a hilarious segment in the film’s denouement – that even when the film tries to strike a serious tone, it’s impossible to take any of it seriously.

With Claire Forlani, Yee Yee Tso, Rachel Leigh Cook and Richard Roundtree in supporting roles, “Antitrust” feels like a cartoon. It’s supposed to be a thriller about brilliant people doing brilliant things, but with a story this thin – and a cast and characters this dull – the entire effort is about as exciting as DOS.

Grade: D

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Mondays in Style, Thursdays in the scene, Tuesdays on “NEWS CENTER at 5” and Thursdays on “NEWS CENTER at 5:30” on WLBZ-2 and WCSH-6. He can be reached at BDNFilm1@aol.com.

THE VIDEO CORNER

Renting a video? NEWS film critic Christopher Smith can help. Below are his grades of recent releases in video stores.

Antitrust ? D

Before Night Falls ? A

Best in Show ? A

Requiem for a Dream ? A

Vertical Limit ?B-

Pay it Forward ? C

Duets ? D

Quills ? B

What Women Want ? B

Yi Yi ? A

All the Pretty Horses ? C-