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Auto
Focus
Starring:
Greg Kinnear, Willem Dafoe, Maria Bello, Rita Wilson, and Ron
Leibman.
Directed by: Paul Schrader
Rated: R
Auto
Focus is a stylish snapshot of a life riddled with contrasts that
sometimes make you shudder but, ultimately, reminds you we are
free to chose our destiny.
Be prepared. AF glares its not always flattering lens onto the
life of all-American Bob Crane. Bob was something of a celebrity
mansteak extravaganza in his day. Swell on the retina and a twinkle
in his eye. Who better to capture his suave ways than that swell
on the retina and twinkle eyed Greg Kinnear? And Bob, for better
of worse, is best known as the smarter-than-the-average-prisoner-of-war
Colonel Robert Hogan who ran things in a POW camp known as Stalag
13. Stalag 13, for those too young to recall, was the TV set for
the show 'Hogan's Heroes'.
Hogan's Heroes was number one and Crane's star was rising - again.
He had already conquered the airwaves thanks to his melodic voice
and precision delivery. Now his good looks and exuding personality
was fascinating a visual crowd.
Rising, also, was this new phenomenon of affordable home video
technology…
Richard
- Family Feud - Dawson another actor on Hogan's Heroes was into
technology. Dawson had a business associate named John Carpenter
(Willem - I did plenty of things besides the Green
Goblin for crimony! Did you see The English Patient? Huh?
Huh? - Dafoe) that would hook Crane - already a photography buff
- up with the latest and greatest in this home movie video apparatus
stuff-a-magal about to sweep the nation.
As Bob (Greg Kinnear) and John cultivated a close, almost spouse
- like, friendship based on their mutual hobby, Crane's long marriage
to high school sweetheart Anne (Rita Wilson) started to fail.
His loving wife, Anne, was cut from that 1950's straight-edged
woman mold; elegant and stoic. Bob, too, it seemed…
As Crane started to seek refuge from long days at the studio,
and indulge more and more into his awakening sexuality, his all-American
household started to crumble faster than that hack Tom Greene's
career (one can only hope…). Bob
had taken to meeting up with Carpenter at the local boobie emporium;
the local strip club. Here Bobbie enjoyed boobies and relaxed
by banging on some skins. Drum skins I mean. He loved to play
the drums. Oh, and sex, we are about to learn...Yepp-o-daddy-o,
sex, lies and videotape was heading into the forefront of Crane's
world and would eventually affect all aspects of his life.
The roller coaster of Crane's life, which till now seemed to run
straight and relatively smooth, starts to inch its way up the
track and onto the other fast and volatile side. A new life was
coming head on; his divorce, his unhappiness about his career
and budding appetite for sex.
Sex with many women…. sex on videotape…. sex for dessert….
sex with the evening news and so on. His career was sadly halted
after 'Hogan's Heroes' and it seemed his growing frustration in
his career-helped fuel these sexual addictions.
Ultimately Bob's habits lead him to a tragic end at the hands
of some lunatic - still unknown - that bludgeoned him to death
while he slept. A crime of passion it seemed…. a crime with
several suspects…. a crime that wasted a nice guy's life.
Brilliant director Paul Schrader glides his actors into the dark
side of the psyche again. Bob Crane was not a bad man. Neither,
for that matter, was John Carpenter. But, the two friends had
a face they showed and a face they hid (kind of). Schrader again
shows us the personality polar opposites people can and do possess.
Well, then again, Bobbie apparently liked to show his photo album
of his sexual acrobatics to folks like it was a stamp collection,
so he wasn't exactly hiding this side of himself, I suppose.
Furiously underrated, Greg Kinnear captures Bob Crane's charm,
qualities and idiosyncrasies so completely that Bob seemed to
immediately just flow from Kinnear's own soul. See, I reiterate,
Bob was not a bad man, just a sex addict in his personal life.
And, the actor that could portray him had to have a certain charisma
to keep him from just becoming a Pervie Pete. Kinnear's got gallons
of charisma! In fact Gregory's charisma is so evident in his heart
warming delivery of Crane that even when Auto Focus' subject matter
is less than Disney MPAA Rated G for General, Kinnear and his
tremendous talents manage to keep Crane likable, deep and human.
Sure, Greg's as cute as a slice of Bob's Big Boy's Strawberry
pie chilled to perfection with layers of sweet, mixed with tangy,
dancing about….but he's also one helluva actor and I'm a
big admirer of his. Heck, if he weren't happily married, I'd jump
on him like a rabid Rhesus monkey.
Speaking of pools of talent as deep as Lake Baikal, Willem Dafoe
is perfection personified as John Carpenter, Bob's enabling friend.
And I use that term "friend" in a tone that should be
heard as sarcastic, cynical and alludes to a Judas. Bill's not
classically handsome, but blessed with a unique look that transports
our minds immediately to a dark alley and feeling of uneasiness
welling up around raised neck hairs, while still, somehow, his
look is bewitching.
The women of the film, Anne, Bob's first wife, played by Rita
Wilson and Patti, Bob's second wife, played by the stunning Maria
Bello, were also perfectly cast. Their talents were orchestrated
by Schrader to display the anguish one feels when attached to
an addict.
And Maria Bello, she played Patty the open-minded-sex-toy-at-first-then-mom-wife
with a desire for that gas guzzling station wagon to be parked
in the driveway, with a nice depth. Keep your eye out for Bello.
Sure, she's model gorgeous, but she's also extremely talented.
The casting
in this film was just brilliant, down to a quick cameo of Bob
Crane's own son Bob Crane Jr. as a less-than-sympathetic interviewer
of Crane Sr.
Snack
recommendation: Grapefruit juice and Vitamin E
Emily
Blunt's interview with Willem DaFoe HERE
Emily Blunt's interview with Greg Kinnear HERE
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