DIRECTOR: Bryan Singer
MPAA RATING: R
RUNNING TIME: 112 Minutes
STUDIO: Sony Pictures
| Apt Pupil (1998) |
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| CAST: Brad Renfro, Ian McKellen, David Schwimmer
DIRECTOR: Bryan Singer MPAA RATING: R RUNNING TIME: 112 Minutes STUDIO: Sony Pictures |
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This movie is in a long list of Stephen King based films that have failed to live up to
the novel. With maybe The Shining and The Shawshank Redemption as
exceptions, most of the other film adaptations from King's books are not too good.
Apt Pupil could have been a great movie. It stars Bran Renfro, who plays a
top-notch student that is obsessed with the Holocaust. He wants to know everything
that happened. He finds a former Nazi Officer by the name of Kurt Dussander (Ian
McKellen), who has been hiding out in Renfro's hometown for years under a different
name. Renfro threatens to blow McKellen's cover if he doesn't tell him the whole
story from the war. McKellen complies and the stories begin.
I enjoyed the first half of the movie pretty well. It mostly involved McKellen telling Renfro the awful stories from the war and the things that he had done to the Jewish people. It would have been nice if the director would have included some visual images during these stories. Words are okay to use, but when that's all you use to show examples, it leaves the audience empty-handed. The second half is where the movie puts it in super slow-mo. The violence that takes place late in the book is no where to be found in this movie. Its hollow core creates a cold breeze. The breeze freezes any chance of a climatic ending and we're left disappointed. McKellen is the only thing worth seeing. Renfro does okay, but I could have played his part. There were only 1 or 2 moments of suspense. My favorite scene shows Renfro giving McKellen a Nazi uniform. Renfro orders McKellan to put the uniform on and begins to bark orders for McKellen to start marching. McKellen marches to satisfy the boy's entertainment, but after a few seconds, he begins to march as if the war was taking place. McKellen starts marching harder and harder and begins to use the Nazi salute. He then leaps back into reality and knows that Renfro may be waking up a monster from the past. McKellen then says to Renfro very cautiously, "you're playing with fire boy." Too bad the fire burns out after only 40 minutes of film. |
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