DRAGONFLY (*½)
The hardest movies to write about are the ones that are most bland. They have everything in place, but fitting the pieces into a valuable whole has been botched in some places. DRAGONFLY more than fits the profile. It has an interesting storyline, good actors, and a decent script, but the whole project seems lifeless and tacky. It marks a very very low point in Kevin Costner's career which seems to be spiraling further and further down the drain. How the mighty have fallen.
The story is a simple one. Dr. Joe Darrow (Kevin Costner of DANCES WITH WOLVES) heads an emergency room at a Chicago hospital and is married to a fellow doctor, Emily Darrow (Susanna Thompson) who is pregnant and works for a Red Cross unit in Venezuela. She apparently dies in an mudslide but her body is never found. As he copes with her loss he begins to experience strange events at the hospital, especially with children who were in Dr. Emily's care. After some of their tales after near-death experiences, along with apparently supernatural occurrences, Joe believes that Emily is trying to contact him, despite pleas of sanity coming from his friends and co-workers. He follows the clues which lead him to Venezuela to discover what Emily is trying to tell him.
This movie caught me in a good mood. I was in the perfect mood to put aside my skepticism and try to take the story for what it was. I didn't mind the mystical mumbo-jumbo explanations being fed to me by Sister Madeline (Linda Hunt of THE YEAR OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY), although carefully delivered. What I did mind was how shabby the movie was made. If you thought RESIDENT EVIL had bad production value, this film makes it look like THE MATRIX. Have you ever seen one of those bad B action flicks which local buses continually show on trips? Same quality here. It was so bad that it drew out my pity than my anger. Here is a film which actually makes you feel sad because of its crushed atmosphere. It's beaten before it even gets out of the block.
For example, there are waterfall scenes where Joe is saved from drowning, but a few hours after he's drowned, his clothes look like they've gone through a rinse cycle. Those Venezuelan waters must be really clean. It would have probably helped if there were some neat special effects like in WHAT DREAMS MAY COME to show glimpses of the afterlife, but there are none (the producers probably couldn't afford it). There is virtually no suspense, only cheap shocks you can unearth from the bowels of the theatre's speakers.
The acting here isn't really bad (with the exception of the kids and Mr. Costner), it's misplaced. Lisa Hunt is one of the best old-maid character playing actors in the business but there's too little for her to sink her teeth into. And I must give her credit for injecting even a hint of authenticity to the most awkward lines in the movie. Joe Morton (CITY OF HOPE) is another underrated but versatile actor whose talents are wasted on a dead-end role. Kathy Bates (MISERY), an Oscar-winning actress, projects the most well-rounded character as Joe's lawyer-friend, but it's underwritten, and unworthy of the spunk and sensitivity she's capable of displaying.
And then there's Kevin Costner, who is so pitiful not because of his character's dilemma, but because of his performance. Not once in the entire movie does Mr. Costner seem like he has lost his wife, or seem truly maddened by the possibility that she might be alive. Even in the end when he discovers the reason for his journey, the lack of passion in his character's personality is mind-boggling. I really felt sorry for Mr. Costner in this picture. There is a certain half-heartedness in his role-playing. He appears to be a man defeated by his failures. I really hope this is not the case.
After seeing this film, I hope Tom Shadyac never directs again, or at least surprises me. He directed ACE VENTURA 2: WHEN NATURE CALLS which went way over the top then crashed and burned. He also made the shamelessly manipulative and sanctimonious medical drama PATCH ADAMS. Now he has turned a good idea into rubble, and I'm dismayed because of it. Nearing the end, I was praying that Emily had a good reason for pushing Joe to go where he had to, and it was!
Looking back at DRAGONFLY, I was kind of glad to go through it, to see what a loving and tender tale it could have been. But I can't recommend the same experience to other movie-goers. This is not how the creator of DANCES WITH WOLVES should go out.
Posted by FLIPCRITIC at June 4, 2002 12:00 AM