Don't let the title throw you - this is not a remake/send-up of Beauty and the Beast. Oh, it's a remake all right, but it's Anna and the King of Siam that provides the framework for this romantic comedy starring Fran Drescher. The setting has been updated to 1990s Europe from
1850s Asia, but the basic story is identical.
On television, Drescher plays a lower class nanny hired to care for an upper class widower's
children. For her first starring role in a feature, Drescher sticks to the same formula. Here she
plays the exact same type of brassy New Yorker, a hairdresser mistakenly hired to tutor the
children of a widowed dictator of a tiny Eastern European nation. It's a much better
situation comedy than the one we've seen her in on television, but it's still a sitcom, full of stock
situations and one-dimensional characters. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me much if this were
eventually seen in a TV version, just as Anna and the King became a short-lived TV sitcom
back in 1972.
Timothy Dalton does well enough as the Stalin-esque president, but won't make anyone forget
Yul Brynner. He's a bit too oafish most of the time - it would have been more interesting if his
character were sharper and more worldly, but this isn't a script that is interested in challenges.
A successful sitcom is most often both funny and comfortable.
Drescher scores very well in this department, completely able to carry the film via her
personality alone. She's can be sexy, very funny, and above all approachable - someone who
feels like a friend to her audience. And forget about complaining about that whining voice - it's
one of the things that makes her so memorable, giving her one-liners an extra push. It's too bad
she rarely gets a story that lives up to her talents. Though showcasing Drescher well, the
screenwriters here are too lazy to come up with fresh situations, relying on predictable formulae
at every turn.
TURBULENCE
An Old Dark House thriller - but this time the House is a jumbo jet, making a transcontinental
flight on Christmas Eve. Lauren Holly is the flight attendant in distress, while Ray Liotta takes
the role of the lurking psycho.
Turbulence not only mixes the traditional airline thriller with the traditional slasher thriller, but
seems determined to gleefully trot out all the clichés of both sub-genres. Liotta, a convicted
serial killer on his way back to death row after an escape, has little trouble disposing of his
escorts, and easily gets the remaining passengers and crew out of the way (the holiday flight is
strangely - and conveniently - uncrowded. The pilots are killed in the initial struggle, leaving
Holly (you guessed it) to try to fly the plane, while the loony Liotta plays cat & mouse games
with her. It's all a bunch of high-strung hokum, but plays as though it expects you to play along
anyway.
There's some well done special effects sequences in which the 747 is tossed around by a storm
and nearly crashes into buildings, but for the most part these scenes don't appear until the end of
the picture - which leaves our two leads to pretty much carry the load on their own for the entire
haul. Liotta is a fine actor, and he shows us some nifty tricks here. But on the whole, he camps
up his psycho act way too much, as if auditioning for a part in the next Batman feature. He
scores some thrills and laughs, but we're meant to suspect his possible innocence early in the
picture, and instead he comes off as a creep from his first frame on.
That leaves it up to Holly to hold the movie together, which she accomplishes quite well,
considering how it thrashes around trying to get away from her. She impressed me quite a bit
with her careful work in the TV series Picket Fences (heck - all right, I'll admit to the crush), but
she's only had supporting roles in features up 'til now. I'd feared that the loss of the spotlight the
series gave her, added to her marriage to megastar Jim Carrey, may have put a damper on her
career. However, she makes a great case for herself here, imbuing her character with strength
buried under a surface of vulnerability. It's a difficult job, but she manages to make her role
seem honest and believable, even if it's almost buried in balony.
By the way - the Xmas setting may seem odd for a feature released in January. The reason for it
is that Turbulence was meant to be released around Thanksgiving, perhaps because it looked
like it would be easily buried in the holiday rush. Now, after the shiny new blockbusters have
been unwrapped and the rubbish has been cleared away, is the perfect time for pictures like this
one to get a little attention. It can't compete with the big events, but it's perfectly good
entertainment for a chilly winter evening. 1/2
plays the exact same type of brassy New Yorker, a hairdresser mistakenly hired to tutor the
children of a widowed dictator of a tiny Eastern European nation. It's a much better
situation comedy than the one we've seen her in on television, but it's still a sitcom, full of stock
situations and one-dimensional characters. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me much if this were
eventually seen in a TV version, just as Anna and the King became a short-lived TV sitcom
back in 1972.