In theaters

THE HUMAN STAIN, directed by Robert Benton, written by Nicholas Meyer, based on the novel by Philip Roth, 106 minutes, rated R. Starts Sunday, Colonial Theater, Belfast.

The new Robert Benton movie, “The Human Stain,” is a perfect example of the importance of good casting. If it’s not just right, the movie in question won’t be right either, regardless of how compelling the script, how talented the cast, how gifted the director.

That’s just the case in “The Human Stain,” which sinks onscreen because of the casting of Anthony Hopkins in the lead. He’s so wrong for the movie, he renders much of it unbelievable, particularly the stunning plot twist on which so much of it hinges.

As written by Nicholas Meyer from Philip Roth’s 2000 novel, the film is tricky to review because so much of it is staked on this central twist, which is revealed in the film’s first third, thus leaving two-thirds of it essentially unmentionable by me.

Without revealing anything crucial, what can be said is this: The movie stars Hopkins as Coleman Silk, a professor of classics at a prestigious New England college who recently has quit his job after being charged with an ethnic slur.

Apparently, Coleman isn’t who he appears to be. His entire adult life has been a tumble of lies that have succeeded in deceiving everyone around him – including his recently dead wife, who never really knew him.

Now the poison of those lies threatens to taint his love affair with Faunia (Nicole Kidman), a rough, smoky young woman with bad manners and anger management issues who has her own problems dealing with Lester (Ed Harris), her murderous ex-husband stalking her in his monster truck.

It’s Coleman’s relationship with Faunia and his friendship with the writer Nathan Zuckerman (Gary Sinise), who narrates, that force him to confront the unfortunate decisions he made in his past. Eased back into Coleman’s youth, we’re introduced to the professor as a young man (Wentworth Miller), struck by his ugly deceit, and then are plunged into stupified silence as we try to digest it.

It’s so shocking when Coleman’s truth hits, you can’t believe it – not because it’s unbelievable, which it isn’t, but because the casting of Hopkins makes it unbelievable. I realize I’m being vague, but if I weren’t, the most discouraging e-mails would start pouring in.

Here’s something specific – after winning last year’s Academy Award for Best Actress, Nicole Kidman apparently lost her wits in 2003. First she threw herself into “Cold Mountain,” which turned out to be a lukewarm molehill, and now she makes the most awful “Human Stain.”

As Faunia, a self-described piece of “trailer trash” with a cigarette forever at the ready, she is never once believable, which brings us back to the casting and the real reason this whole mess falls flat.

Fans of Roth’s novel shouldn’t expect to find it here – the biting wit for which Roth is known has been almost entirely stripped away, leaving in its wake a maudlin movie that could have said so much more about its crucial ethnic slur had the people doing the talking only made us believe what they had to say.

Grade: D

On video and DVD

MATCHSTICK MEN, directed by Ridley Scott, written by Nicholas Griffin and Ted Griffin, 120 minutes, rated PG-13.

Ridley Scott’s “Matchstick Men” continues the resurrection of Nicholas Cage’s career, which he sandbagged in the mid-’90s after believing he should become the next Schwarzenegger or Stallone.

That decision cost him the following he earned early in his career, when he found a niche in interesting, character-driven films such as “Peggy Sue Got Married,” “Raising Arizona” and “Moonstruck.” After selling out for the low-tide likes of “Con-Air,” “The Rock” and “Face/Off,” it seemed as if the actor was lost to the lure of the big paycheck until, last year, he showed up in the terrific “Adaptation.”

Directed by Spike Jonze, the movie worked because it realized Cage’s strengths as an actor: He isn’t at his best as a testosterone-pumped breathe-hard tossing bombs and dodging bullets. Instead, the actor soars when playing intense, introspective characters psychologically teetering on the edge.

That’s the case in “Matchstick Men,” which features Cage as Roy Waller, a man nearly crippled by obsessive-compulsive disorder whose day job happens to be crippling the bank accounts of those unsuspecting folks he and his partner, Frank (Sam Rockwell), target to swindle.

Likable in a sad way, Roy is just barely getting through life with the help of his little pink pills when, one day, those pills accidentally are washed down the kitchen sink. It’s a pivotal scene that launches the story into a series of events, not the least of which finds Roy reconnecting with his long-lost, 14-year-old daughter, Angela (Alison Lohman).

Shades of “Paper Moon” ensue, with Angela becoming so seduced by her father’s life of crime, she convinces him to let her help him on a major job he and Frank are about to pull. Revealing more would be the real crime. Suffice to say that Scott has a few twists up his sleeve, with Cage and Lohman delivering two of last year’s more compelling performances.

Grade: A-

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Mondays and Fridays in Style, 5:30 p.m. Thursdays on WLBZ 2 and WCSH 6, and are archived at RottenTomatoes.com. He can be reached at BDNFilm1@aol.com.

The Video-DVD Corner

Renting a video or a DVD? NEWS film critic Christopher Smith can help. Below are his grades of recent releases in video stores. Those in bold print are new to video stores this week.

American Splendor ? A-

Anything Else ? B+

Bad Boys II ? C-

Bruce Almighty ? B+

The Fighting Temptations ? C

Finding Nemo ? B+

Freaky Friday ? A-

How to Deal ? C-

House of the Dead ? D

The In-Laws ? C

Intolerable Cruelty ? B-

The Italian Job ? A-

Le Divorce ? C-

Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers ? A-

Lost in Translation ? A

Man on the Train ? A-

The Matrix Reloaded ? A-

My Boss’s Daughter ? BOMB

Nowhere in Africa ? A

Once Upon a Time in Mexico ? B-

Open Range ? B+

Out of Time ? B

The Order ? D

Pirates of the Caribbean ? A-

Radio ? C

Runaway Jury ? B

Secondhand Lions ? C+

The Secret Lives of Dentists ? B+

Swimming Pool ? B+

Sylvia ? B-

Thirteen ? B+

28 Days Later ? B+

Under the Tuscan Sun ? B+

Underworld ? D

Winged Migration ? A