‘Auto Focus’ fails to give characters any clarity Sleaze-packed film offers no insight into actor’s life

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AUTO FOCUS, directed by Paul Schrader, written by Michael Gerbosi, 107 minutes, rated R.

The new Paul Schrader film, “Auto Focus,” has all the elements of a sordid potboiler – and then some.

In less than two hours, it packs in the poison of sudden fame, a sex-addicted television star, strip joints galore, orgies, prostitutes, homemade sex tapes, bitter divorces, bisexual undertones – and a gruesome murder in a seedy Arizona apartment complex.

It’s enough to make you think that sweeps week has hit the box office.

The film, from a script Michael Gerbosi based on Robert Graysmith’s book “The Murder of Bob Crane,” focuses less on the mystery surrounding the actor’s murder and more on the man’s dark side, which partly was responsible for his murder.

Crane (Greg Kinnear), the affable star of the 1965-71 hit sitcom “Hogan’s Heroes,” was bludgeoned to death in 1978 after a well-documented history of sleaze, self-delusion and an obsession with sex.

Since those in the know will know from the get-go that Crane’s days are numbered, Schrader’s challenge was to make a film that explored the reckless behavior that cost the actor so much – his two marriages, his television career, his friends and ultimately his own life – while shedding light on the psychology behind the compulsion that fueled his behavior. Schrader doesn’t come close.

Instead, the director, a self-described lapsed Calvinist who has made his share of films moralizing life’s more salacious pitfalls – “Hard Core,” “American Gigolo” and “The Comfort of Strangers” among them – is only ever interested in the sex.

He’s drawn to it to the point of distraction, focusing more on the mechanics of the act than on the motivation behind the irrationally of Crane’s nighttime excursions.

As such, “Auto Focus” gives audiences plenty of scenes in which Crane and his friend John Carpenter (Willem Dafoe) lure women to their homes or hotel rooms for orgies they’d tape on video. At the height of his fame, Crane, a drummer, also would take the stage at popular strip clubs, sitting in with the band while a dumbstruck audience looked on in wonder as the “man from ‘Hogan’s Heroes'” ogled and jeered the disrobing, undulating women.

What was he doing there? How could he have been so indiscrete in a town filled with wagging tongues? There are no answers and, in the end, it’s questionable whether the film has a purpose beyond being a glum cautionary tale.

As well-acted as it is by Kinnear, Dafoe, Rita Wilson as Crane’s first wife and Ron Liebman as his longtime agent, “Auto Focus” just observes. Much like the quick flings Crane favored, the film isn’t entirely without interest, but it’s so soulless, you might find yourself wondering why you should care about any of these people when it’s perfectly clear that Schrader himself doesn’t.

Grade: C

On video and DVD

THIRTEEN CONVERSATIONS ABOUT ONE THING, directed by Jill Sprecher, written by Sprecher and Karen Sprecher, 102 minutes, rated R.

Jill Sprecher’s “Thirteen Conversations About One Thing” is based in part on Sprecher’s own experiences in the early 1990s, when she was mugged in New York City and left for dead.

The film, which Sprecher (“Clockwatchers”) co-wrote with her sister Karen, follows several interrelated New York stories and the people barely existing within them. There’s Gene (Alan Arkin), an insurance claim adjuster so miserable with his botched life he seeks to ruin a perpetually cheerful co-worker named Dick (Frankie Faison), a middle-aged man whose life, on the surface, seems charmed.

There’s Troy (Matthew McConaughey), a successful lawyer whose life looks golden until the night he climbs into his car and accidentally mows down Beatrice (Clea DuVall), a sweet-hearted maid whose soul hardens after she’s left broken and bleeding in the street, a direct parallel to Sprecher’s own life. Consumed by guilt, Troy gradually falls apart.

There’s Walker (John Turturro), a physics professor at Columbia University who claims he’s never felt happier or more alive since he began cheating on his wife (Amy Irving), a woman whose devastation at the loss of her marriage is matched only by Walker’s own devastation when he’s faced with the potential loss of his mistress (Barbara Sukowa).

As the film unwinds, reeling back and forward in time for dramatic effect, the characters launch into 13 telling, often heated conversations that reveal all that’s right and wrong with the world through Sprecher’s knowing gaze. With its superb performances and provocative script, it’s one of the year’s best and bravest, a film that finds Sprecher using her characters to explore her own questions about the world and her concerns for the human condition.

Grade: A

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Mondays and Fridays in Style, Tuesdays and Thursdays on WLBZ 2 and WCSH 6, and are archived on RottenTomatoes.com. He can be reached at BDNFilm1@aol.com.

Renting a video or a DVD? NEWS film critic Christopher Smith can help. Below are his grades of recent releases in video stores, starting alphabetically with the most current releases.

Ice Age ? B

Lovely and Amazing ? A

Men in Black II ? C-

Sunset Boulevard (DVD) ? A+

Reign of Fire ? C+

Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron ? B+

Thirteen Conversations About One Thing ? A

Bad Company ? D

The Importance of Being Earnest ? B-

Star Wars: Attack of the Clones ? C+

The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys ? B-

The Powerpuff Girls Movie ? B

Pumpkin ? C+

The Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood ? B+

Eight Legged Freaks ? B

Spider-Man ? A-

Sum of All Fears ? D

E.T.: 20th Anniversary Edition ? A

Mr. Deeds ? D

Insomnia ? A

Life or Something Like It ? B-

Scooby-Doo ? C-

Windtalkers ? C-

Big Trouble ? D

Enough ? C-

Jason X ? Bomb

Brotherhood of the Wolf ? B

The Scorpion King ? B

Enigma ? C

Monsoon Wedding ? A-

Murder by Numbers ? C

Death to Smoochy ? B+

40 Days and 40 Nights ? C-

Monsters, Inc. ? A-

Panic Room ? B

Changing Lanes ? B

Count of Monte Cristo ? B+

Frailty ? C-

Blade II ? B+

High Crimes ? C

Queen of the Damned ? C-

Iris ? B

Joe Somebody ? D

The Rookie ? A-

The Sweetest Thing ? D+

We Were Soldiers ? B+

Birthday Girl ? B

The Business of Strangers ? B

Clockstoppers ? C

In the Bedroom ? A

The New Guy ? D

Showtime ? C+

Deuces Wild ? D-

Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring ? B+

Collateral Damage ? D

Dragonfly ? D

Resident Evil ? C-

Crossroads ? C-

Kung Pow: Enter the Fist ? B-

The Time Machine ? D-

Amelie ? A

John Q. ? C-

Pinero ? B

Charlotte Gray ? B+

Hart?s War ? B

The Royal Tenenbaums ? B+

Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius ? B+

Shallow Hal ? C

A Beautiful Mind ? B

Gosford Park ? B+

I Am Sam ? C

The Majestic?D-

Max Keeble?s Big Move ?B

Orange County ? C-

The Shipping News ? C

Rollerball ? F

Black Hawk Down ? B

Kate & Leopold ? C+

Monster?s Ball ? A

The Mothman Prophecies ? C

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer?s Stone ? B?

Sidewalks of New York ? B-

Lantana ? A

Vanilla Sky ? B+

Corky Romano ? D-

From Hell ? C

The Others ? B+

Snow Dogs ? B-

Ocean?s Eleven ? B

Waking Life ? A

Ali ? B+

Not Another Teen Movie ? C-

Behind Enemy Lines ? C-

No Man?s Land ? A

Black Knight ? F

The Deep End ? A

Domestic Disturbance ? C

The Man Who Wasn?t There ? B+

Mulholland Drive ? A

Spy Game ? C+

Bandits ? D

13 Ghosts ? F

Donnie Darko ? B

K-Pax ? B-

Life as a House ? C

Original Sin ? F

Our Lady of the Assassins ? B+

Riding in Cars with Boys ? B-

Training Day ? B-

Heist ? B+

Joy Ride ? B+

Zoolander ? C-

A.I. ? B-

The Last Castle ? C-

Sexy Beast ? B+

Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back ? F

The Musketeer ? D-

The Taste of Others ? A-

Don?t Say a Word ? C-

Hardball ? C+

O ? B+

Hearts in Atlantis ? B

Life Without Dick ? D

Ghost World ? A