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'In Love and War:' a casting disaster on both counts

scene from movie January 31, 1997
Web posted at: 6:00 p.m. EST

From Movie Reviewer Paul Tatara

In this story:

(CNN) -- Someone should tell director Richard Attenborough to wake up and smell the last 50 years.

With the exception of "A Chorus Line" and one bad little horror film, Attenborough's directorial output has always relied far too heavily on the archaic conceits of late 1940s romantic epics. Heroic brotherhoods, overripe dialogue and dramatic face slapping are par for the Attenborough course, but his latest film actually manages to up the ante on us.

movie icon (1.7M/42 sec. QuickTime movie) - small trailer from movie
movie icon (5M/2 min. 17 sec. QuickTime movie) - large trailer from movie

"In Love and War," the story of young Ernest Hemingway's love affair with an American nurse in the waning days of World War I, is the kind of movie that must have seemed intoxicating when actors like Trevor Howard were around.

But Howard has been dead for quite some time, along with the sort of weepy romantic mind-set that is a prerequisite to believing in this sort of story. In the right hands, the film may have stood a fighting chance.

Unfortunately, when Sir Richard shoots for heady wine, he usually ends up with Kool Aid, and pretty weak Kool Aid at that. Even "Gandhi," which took home a slew of Academy Awards 15 years ago, is a pretty lame stab at something Highly Significant.

Luckily, Attenborough's inept handling of Gandhi's story was mostly obscured by Ben Kingsley's entertaining performance. No such luck with "In Love and War."

O'Donnell no he-man

O'Donnel

Inept casting has sunk far meatier screenplays than this one, so it should come as no surprise that things are not helped greatly by Chris O'Donnell's performance as Ernest Hemingway ... better make that Over-Ernest Hemingway.

Don't get me wrong; I have nothing against O'Donnell. In TV interviews, he comes across as a very likable young man, and this certainly is the case in his previous, much lighter screen roles.

He does not, however, project for one minute the kind of egotism that would cause a man to venture into the Italian trenches of World War I for the fun of it, let alone grow up to hunt bull elephants, drink way too much whiskey and, eventually, blow his brains out for the perceived sin of artistic obsolescence.

In the film's one true battle sequence, O'Donnell looks like the world's biggest vanilla milkshake trying to win an accommodation for valor. You're almost thankful when he finally takes a round in the leg and gets sent to a hospital to recuperate.

Bullock better on a bus

bullock

That is, until Sandra Bullock shows up. Again, I'm not complaining about Bullock as a matter of principle. She has a goofy/sweet quality about her that can be very enjoyable when matched with the proper material.

It should not have to be pointed out, though, that cracking wise while driving a speeding bus does not make her Florence Nightingale. It really boggles the mind to think that somewhere out there, a large group of people sat down in an office and decided that the pairing of O'Donnell and Bullock is just what this story needed to bring it to life.

Just the fact that Bullock's character is supposed to be an obviously older, wiser woman should have been enough to nix the idea. Bullock seems older and wiser than O'Donnell in the same way that the senior head cheerleader seems older and wiser than the freshman quarterback.

She is a beautiful woman (and her performance is nowhere near the travesty that O'Donnell's is) but this type of actress should not be made to drain pus from a gangrenous leg.

A role to forget

kiss

Everybody had a lot of fun a couple years ago trying to decide whether Bullock was a better Julia Roberts than Julia Roberts was, and both actresses did the best they could to distance themselves from this argument.

"In Love and War," if nothing else, is Sandra Bullock's Mary Reilly, and one hopes that by now both women have lost the itch to dress up in period costumes.

A word of advice for Bullock and Roberts -- look for scripts in which people are sitting around eating cheese fries, and you're on the right track. As for Attenborough -- maybe he could get Keanu Reeves to play Gertrude Stein.

 
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