10/10/97
MOVIE REVIEW: Most Wanted
Wayans mostly goes through the motions

By MICHAEL JANUSONIS
Journal-Bulletin Arts Writer

*** (out of five)
Starring Keenen Ivory Wayans, Jon Voight, Jill Hennessy, Paul Sorvino, Robert Culp, Eric Roberts. A New Line Cinema release written by Wayans, directed by David Glenn Hogan. Rated R, contains violence, nudity, profanity. Running time: 97 minutes.

Keenen Ivory Wayans plays a death row escapee who gets caught in a tangled web of political intrigue when he's accused of killing the first lady in Most Wanted.

This is one of those "whom-can-you-trust?" movies, as Wayans's James Dunn tries to uncover the real assassins and their motives before he's caught by either the police, who think he did it, or by the real killers, who want him dead.

He's joined on the run by a doctor (Jill Hennessy of TV's Law and Order) whose videotape of the assassination proves Dunn's innocence. Naturally the real killers want the taped evidence, too, and lead Dunn and Dr. Constantini on a wild chase across Los Angeles.

Dunn makes some spectacular escapes -- an exploding house, a shootout in an eerie apartment building, a chase across the top of a bridge, a parachute dive off a skyscraper. One of the funniest has him pursued by about 100 people, who want the $10 million reward for his capture, across a freeway ramp which causes a demolition derby of mayhem.

Most Wanted doesn't want for action. And if the motive for the assassination seems a little threadbare under scrutiny, this is a film that keeps you guessing for long stretches. (Although I must confess to figuring out the identity of a CIA mole pretty quickly simply because of the actor who plays him.)

What it lacks is a strong center in the surprisingly joyless Wayans. In Dunn's quest to find the killers, he turns up everywhere -- including the secret operations center of the real assassination squad. When he jumps off a skyscraper and then floats down via parachute while being chased in the sky by a helicopter, it's thrilling superhero stuff. But there's no spark of charisma from Wayans to bond his character as strongly with the audience as it should.

Frankly, there's not a lot of chemistry between him and Hennessy, either. She's terrified of him for long stretches at first, and by the time he finally gains her confidence, she all but disappears from the film. So too much of Most Wanted is merely going through the motions, exciting as some of those motions may be.

On the other hand, Jon Voight has enough emotion for two movies in another over-the-top performance. This is Voight's third wild and crazy guy this year -- following the wacky snake poacher of Anaconda and the blind man whose best friend is a dead dog in U-Turn. Here he's a rigid Army general who uses several aliases in a megalomaniacal plot to cover up an embarrassing Persian Gulf War incident that involves a big pharmaceutical house and the deaths of several soldiers. Voight's General Woodward, who even wears sunglasses in darkened rooms, is too much of a caricature.

Better is Paul Sorvino as the local CIA chief whose cautious mind slowly pieces the puzzle together. And when was the last time the CIA snoops were movie heroes? It may, in fact, be the most original thing about Most Wanted.