Apt Pupil
2/4
Starring: Brad Renfro, Ian McKellan, Bruce Davison, Ann Dowd, David Schwimmer
Rated R for Scenes of Strong Violence, Language and Brief Sexuality
Every now and then, film critics toss around the term "good premise, bad execution." What this means is that while the idea is good, the filmmakers screwed the pooch when adapting it to the screen. Such a term describes the film "Apt Pupil." The idea, an innocent young boy being seduced into evil by a Nazi war criminal on the lam, is interesting. But Bryan Singer fumbles the ball...majorly.
Todd Bowden (Renfro) is a brilliant high school student in Southern California. He's on his way to becoming the school's valedictorian, but one day he spies a curious man on a bus. That man is Kurt Dussander (McKellan), a notorious Nazi war criminal. Dussander has been in hiding for the past 40 years, and Todd has a hunch that it's him. When confronted with the truth, Dussander agrees to Todd's demands that he tell the young boy "everything" that happened in the death camps. But this frightens Todd and his grades start to fall. That's when Dussander shows him that it takes one to know one.
Putting it simply, the first half of the film is shit. It's borderline unwatchable. Part of the reason is that the script, by first time screenwriter Brandon Boyce, is awful. By trying to get all of the pieces set up, he and director Bryan Singer use short scenes to set up the plot, characters, and themes. It doesn't work. It feels like a jumble of half-baked ideas and characters, and the plot moves along in an extremely jerky way. What's more curious is what Singer concentrates on. For example, the scenes of Todd researching his hunch and realizing that the old man is in fact Dussander, are missing. This robs us of the crucial time to get us behind Todd and want to see his story to the end. Instead, we have scenes like the one where a girl tries to have sex with him (and he later dates, I think...the movie isn't so good on clarifying this) and him having a loco moment while playing basketball. This is all meant to show us what effect his meetings with Dussander have on him, but they don't work because there's no follow through. Merely showing it is not enough, it has to be wedded into the story.
After the halfway mark, the film takes off. When Dussnader turns the tables on Todd, the film finds its groove. There's a considerable amount of tension in these proceedings, at least until the end. It's easy to see what Singer was trying to do, but it doesn't work. The story feels incomplete, especially the issue with the homeless man played by Elias Koteas. One would think something like that would have been dealt with differently.
The film received a lot of criticism from people like Roger Ebert and James Berardinelli over the use of the Holocaust in a story like this. Ebert and Berardinelli felt that using such a horrible period of history in a formulaic thriller was exploitative. I shared those feelings to an extent, but only to the point where it could have been any tragedy. Dussander could have been a serial killer and the script wouldn't have changed much. Singer is too concerned about pushing buttons to really deal with the issue.
The acting is a problem. Brad Renfro was a great young actor before his untimely death, is not very believable as Todd. Whether it was because his heart wasn't in it, the character was badly written, he was badly directed or just miscast, the result is the same. Todd isn't someone we form much of a bond with. Ian McKellan is better than the material warrants. As written, the character is inconsistent (come to think of it, that may have been Renfro's problem as well), but McKellan picks up a lot of the slack. It's really not enough, however.
I think the main problem is that Bryan Singer just doesn't know how he wants his audience to feel about the two lead characters. Is Todd the hero turned villain? Are we supposed to like Todd then fear for him? Or be in shock at the horrible things he does? Is Dussander as bad as he seems? Singer doesn't know, and that's why "Apt Pupil" doesn't make the grade.
Starring: Brad Renfro, Ian McKellan, Bruce Davison, Ann Dowd, David Schwimmer
Rated R for Scenes of Strong Violence, Language and Brief Sexuality
Every now and then, film critics toss around the term "good premise, bad execution." What this means is that while the idea is good, the filmmakers screwed the pooch when adapting it to the screen. Such a term describes the film "Apt Pupil." The idea, an innocent young boy being seduced into evil by a Nazi war criminal on the lam, is interesting. But Bryan Singer fumbles the ball...majorly.
Todd Bowden (Renfro) is a brilliant high school student in Southern California. He's on his way to becoming the school's valedictorian, but one day he spies a curious man on a bus. That man is Kurt Dussander (McKellan), a notorious Nazi war criminal. Dussander has been in hiding for the past 40 years, and Todd has a hunch that it's him. When confronted with the truth, Dussander agrees to Todd's demands that he tell the young boy "everything" that happened in the death camps. But this frightens Todd and his grades start to fall. That's when Dussander shows him that it takes one to know one.
Putting it simply, the first half of the film is shit. It's borderline unwatchable. Part of the reason is that the script, by first time screenwriter Brandon Boyce, is awful. By trying to get all of the pieces set up, he and director Bryan Singer use short scenes to set up the plot, characters, and themes. It doesn't work. It feels like a jumble of half-baked ideas and characters, and the plot moves along in an extremely jerky way. What's more curious is what Singer concentrates on. For example, the scenes of Todd researching his hunch and realizing that the old man is in fact Dussander, are missing. This robs us of the crucial time to get us behind Todd and want to see his story to the end. Instead, we have scenes like the one where a girl tries to have sex with him (and he later dates, I think...the movie isn't so good on clarifying this) and him having a loco moment while playing basketball. This is all meant to show us what effect his meetings with Dussander have on him, but they don't work because there's no follow through. Merely showing it is not enough, it has to be wedded into the story.
After the halfway mark, the film takes off. When Dussnader turns the tables on Todd, the film finds its groove. There's a considerable amount of tension in these proceedings, at least until the end. It's easy to see what Singer was trying to do, but it doesn't work. The story feels incomplete, especially the issue with the homeless man played by Elias Koteas. One would think something like that would have been dealt with differently.
The film received a lot of criticism from people like Roger Ebert and James Berardinelli over the use of the Holocaust in a story like this. Ebert and Berardinelli felt that using such a horrible period of history in a formulaic thriller was exploitative. I shared those feelings to an extent, but only to the point where it could have been any tragedy. Dussander could have been a serial killer and the script wouldn't have changed much. Singer is too concerned about pushing buttons to really deal with the issue.
The acting is a problem. Brad Renfro was a great young actor before his untimely death, is not very believable as Todd. Whether it was because his heart wasn't in it, the character was badly written, he was badly directed or just miscast, the result is the same. Todd isn't someone we form much of a bond with. Ian McKellan is better than the material warrants. As written, the character is inconsistent (come to think of it, that may have been Renfro's problem as well), but McKellan picks up a lot of the slack. It's really not enough, however.
I think the main problem is that Bryan Singer just doesn't know how he wants his audience to feel about the two lead characters. Is Todd the hero turned villain? Are we supposed to like Todd then fear for him? Or be in shock at the horrible things he does? Is Dussander as bad as he seems? Singer doesn't know, and that's why "Apt Pupil" doesn't make the grade.
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