Godawful

Noel Vera

Nick Hamm's "Godsend" opens with a quick sketch of a happy family--
father Paul Duncan (Greg Kinnear), mother Jessie (Rebecca Romijn-
Stamos), and son Adam (Cameron Bright); within the picture's first
ten minutes, the son is killed in a horrifying car accident. Cut to
the funeral, and a Dr. Richard Wells (Robert De Niro) approaching
the parents in a manner that should have had Jessie fumbling for her
pepper spray--apparently Dr. Wells has a technique for cloning a
whole human being out cell samples, but it would only be a matter of
72 hours before Adam's cells are no longer viable (hence his hurried
sales pitch), so he needs an immediate answer.

Paul and Jessie bite; they are relocated to another town, where
Jessie gives birth to a bouncing baby boy. The new Adam (Bright
again) grows past the age of eight, about the time the original Adam
died, and trouble starts popping up: the boy undergoes trance
states, exhibits erratic, even dangerously psychotic, behavior, and
apparently sees and talks to some dead boy named 'Zachary.' Dr.
Wells hasn't told the poor parents everything there is to know about
their cloned child, and now they have to deal with the consequences
of their decision...

And so, unfortunately, do we. Questions pop--like unwanted mushrooms-
-to mind: Wells seems aware that his 'experiment' has gone wrong
before in the past; why doesn't he come up with a more convincing
explanation for what's happening to the child ("we don't know" not
being all that reassuring)? When Paul starts taking matters into his
own hands--threatening to get a second opinion, for example--the
most Dr. Wells manages in response is whisper to Jessie that she
should "rein in" her husband (you can't help thinking "neuter" is
what he really had in mind). When the boy starts misbehaving you
wonder why they give him such free rein about the house and
countryside, especially since they had already lost a child through
an accident (I, for one, would have insisted on picking him up after
school, instead of trusting him to bike home every day). They ponder
their problems with the child, think gloomy, anxious thoughts, then
suddenly look around and wonder where on earth the boy has gone;
you'd think with the money they seem to be making (the houses they
live in are almost uniformly magnificent), they might afford a live-
in nurse…

We also never find out why (skip this paragraph if you plan to watch
the movie) Adam only starts acting up at the age of eight (do Wells'
genes operate on a timetable?), and what's the whole point of Wells'
exercise if the resulting offspring looks like Paul and not him--
what's he hoping to pass on, his pyromaniac tendencies, perhaps? Not
a lot of science in this movie about cloning, and what little there
is is unconvincing, at best; the trashier, far more
entertaining "Boys from Brazil" makes a better case of possibly
coming true.

I've always liked Greg Kinnear, despite the fact that he
consistently appears in projects that are beneath him ("Dear God;"
the "Roman Holiday" remake; "As Good as It Gets"); he has the gift
of keeping one's sympathies, no matter what he's required to do or
say onscreen. Rebecca Romijn-Stamos I've only started to like,
largely on the strength of Brian de Palma's "Femme Fatale," but hers
is the kind of straight all-American housewife roles Anne Archer
used to win Best Actress Oscars for; there's no spark to her
character, possibly because there's little there to strike sparks
with. Cameron Bright has an effectively serene demon-child stare,
but he's stuck playing a boy seemingly "possessed" by another boy
whose character simply doesn't make sense (someone at one point
describes him as "evil," which isn't much of a help).

Robert de Niro continues his campaign to improve his box-office
appeal and simultaneously trash whatever respect people used to have
for him as an actor. His Dr. Wells is essentially a Mephistopheles
role that requires just a little charisma, just a little seductive
style (Michael Caine does this sort of thing in his sleep); De Niro
mumbles his lines mostly while turning or walking away from the one
he's talking to, as if trying to avoid the embarrassment of actually
being recognized in the role; for the climactic confrontation he
adds a touch of Max Cady belligerence, swinging away with a heavy
candlestick as if he were still Al Capone with a bat in "The
Untouchables."

The story (written by Mark Bomback), is essentially "The Bad Seed"
or "The Omen" brought up-to-date with a few quick references to
cloning thrown in; Nick Hamm, a reputed theater director, shows a
total lack of skill in filmmaking by using shock cuts, loud noises
and standard-issue "boo!" moments to try keep the audience awake and
distracted from the threadbare script (judging from all the notices,
he hasn't done a very good job). Can you imagine what Roman Polanski-
-who did "Rosemary's Baby" still perhaps the definitive film on the
subject--might have done with this material, or Brian de Palma who,
if all else fails, can plaster the cracks in the script with style
and visual panache?

The ending is peerlessly silly, with a climax that takes place,
alternately, in a basement, a church, and a shack in the forest
(gratuitous nod to "The Blair Witch Project" duly noted),
dissipating the tension accordingly; a coda that strikes just the
right note of (probably unintentional) campy portentousness; and
reportedly a DVD that includes four of seven alternate endings, the
most interesting of which (unfilmed and un-included in the disc) has
the child killing all the lead characters and remaining the lone
survivor. Aside from the obvious advice--if you really need to see
this, go rent the DVD and imagine your favorite conclusion tacked on-
-the number of alternate endings (Mr. Hamm reportedly prefers the
most pessimistic one) seem to indicate that the filmmakers hardly
knew what they were doing, and chose the most awkward version they
could possibly put together.

(Originally published in Businessworld, 9/10/04)

(Comments? Email me at noelbotevera@...)