Posted: 07/04/2004

The Clearing

(2004)

by Hank Yuloff

When an executive is held captive by an employee, it’s up to his wife to deliver the ransom.

At the beginning of this year, the wife and I had what I called the month of depressive movies. Monster, House of Sand and Fog, Cold Mountain, Fog of War, and Mystic River were all in a row. I was afraid to go to the movies for fear of needing Prozac. I could not wait to review Win a Date with Tad Hamilton.

Last week we saw, Fahrenheit 9-11, yesterday we saw The Notebook and today it was The Clearing. Somebody please get me to Spiderman 2 before I call a shrink.

I am supposed to be a grown up and enjoy grown up stories. So, The Clearing, the story of a kidnapping of an executive by a former employee, with two of my favorite actors, Willem Dafoe and Robert Redford should have had me on the edge of my seat.

First of all, when you think kidnapping as a genre, you think, in the last two years, Proof of Life, Man on Fire, Saving Silverman and Along Came A Spider. Filled with some special effects and rapid fire dialog and scenery to keep things moving along. When you think of The Clearing, that won’t be the case. This is the kidnapping story for those who want to sit down with a good book and let it all unfold. Slowly.

Dafoe, who has NINE movies coming out in 2004, plays Martin, a down on his luck guy who kidnaps Wayne Hayes (Redford), and demands a huge ransom of his wife, Eileen (Helen Mirren from Calendar Girls, Gosford Park). The FBI is, of course, involved and we are held in suspense to find out if Hayes will be returned alive.

The story is told on two tracks: The Martin/Wayne track which takes place only on the day of the kidnapping, and the Eileen/FBI track, in which time passes and we see clues as to what is coming up on the Martin/Wayne track in the movie (much thanks to my wife for figuring out that part out early).

The acting in this creeper is wonderful. Dafoe (Streets of Fire, Spiderman 1 and 2) is leading the age-old story of a life of quiet desperation. Redford (The Sting, The Last Castle) is the executive with foibles who leaves the personal part of his life to his wife to plan while he moves forward with his business ventures.

This film should be no more than a rental for you. That way you can sit in your nice comfortable living room, in your favorite chair, doze off during the parts that don’t interest you and tune back in for the important parts. It’s worth a look, but not worth clearing a big amount of time in your day.

Hank Yuloff is our senior Los Angeles staffer, and he wishes the studios would stop making films so dramatic. Er… well… something like that.

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