Mike Nichols Cooks a Wolf Badly

FILM

Wolf

directed by Mike Nichols

at local theatres

So here's the plot: man is bitten by wolf he hits whole driving on a snowy night in Vermont. He doesn't think anything about it until his senses become more attuned; he can hear people whispering in other parts of his office building and has a zoom sort of vision which hones in on his "prey." Enter spoiled rich girl whose rebellious life has annoyed her publishing magnate father; falling in love with her father's newly-fired employee and soon-to-be arch enemy would be the ultimate in rebellion. There you have it: "Wolf" is one cliched plot turn after another. We've seen it all before, done in other films with more camp or more horror. We've seen it intrigue and arouse, which it does here on occasion, but it simply doesn't tell or show anything original enough to be noteworthy or to carry the movie.

Jack Nicholson plays Will Randall, an editor for a large publishing house in New York City. With the last sweep of 1980's-style conglomerations, he finds out his job is going to be given to his scheming underling, Stewart Swinton (James Spader) and he is going to be offered the new frontier of Eastern Europe to develop. With his New-found canine powers he gets a shoot of testosterone and guts and decides to battle with is boss, the publishing tycoon, Raymond Alden (Christopher Plummer). Meanwhile the boss' daughter has fallen in love with him, so when he finds out his wife Charlotte, played by Kate Nelligan, is having an affair with Stewart, he finds in the daughter Laura (Michelle Pfeiffer) another route for revenge, and as the movie would have us believe, true love develops among the outcasts.

Despite its harried plot what does make "Wolf" mildly entertaining is what Will's transformation does for him. Before he had been an average guy with a wife who plowed away at his job without any real gumption or nerve. His transformation makes him commit violent, gory acts of killing which he doesn't remember, but in his conscious life he channels his energy to make himself young again.

In one scene which I have not seen in other werewolf movies, Will visits an Indian sage of the occult to find out what he can do for his little hairy problem. The sage/doctor, played by Om Puri, informs Will that his transformation will be permanent with the next full moon unless he wears the medallion which he gives him. In return the doctor asks for will to bite him. Old and close to death, the doctor would rather live life as a tyrannical werewolf than die. With his old wrinkled hand held limply in front of his face, the audience is held in suspense as to whether Will will actually bite him. In his gentlemanly manner, Will politely confesses that he cannot do it. Understanding but disappointed, the doctor lets him keep the medallion and sends him on his way.

The only thing which saves the movie is Nicholson himself. This film will not go down in cinematic history, but it allows Nicholson to give his "Shining"-esque eyebrow twists and sinister grin quite often. Pfeiffer plays her usual seductress (i.e. "The Fabulous Baker Boys," "Tequila Sunrise") but does not necessarily give a mind-blowing, pull-out-the-Oscar performance. It wasn't a stretch for either of them to play these roles. In fact I would say it was the easiest money either of them has ever made. If only this reviewer could be paid for such a cake walk...

In the climactic final scene, with the full moon shining, Laura puts Will in the only place on her father's enormous estate which doesn't have windows, the barn. With the horses going crazy in the other stalls, Will fights with the werewolf powers of the Universe as his medallion burns a hold into his chest. He sweats, he pants he thrashes with all the energy and method acting which Nicholson can muster. Predictably enough, Stewart has been infected by the disease when Will snapped at him in a fight and cut his hand. He arrives at the estate and decides to seek his revenge. After running over the gatekeeper of the estate and taking a voracious bite out of another guard's neck, he heads for the barn. And who should he run into on his way over but Laura. In what the struggle which ensues, Stewart attempts to rape Laura while Will bounces off the walls of the stall. Shot in slow motion, director Mike Nichols turns this struggle into an animalistic fight with Laura being thrown on the ground, scratched and hit and eventually thrown up against one of the walls of the barn. It's brutal. It's frightening. And anyone who has a hard time watching intense sexual violence (i.e. this reviewer), should beware. In the end, Will rips off his protective medallion and jumps over the bars of the stall. He and Stewart leap and struggle with lots of blood and gore. In the end Stewart is dead, Will runs off into the woods and Laura is left to deal with the police. But don't think it stops there. As Laura talks gives her testimony to the police and her father, we notice her eyes glowing with the golden sheen indicative of werewolf infection. She too, slinking in her black cat suit looking like something from a Dewar's Scotch ad, slips into the woods to run with Will. And so, presumably, they live happily ever after running through the woods killing innocent deer and waiting for some unbeknownst driver to hit them on a snowy night.

All in all, "Wolf" is an entertaining movie. It has you gripping your seats on occasion and gagging at the gore and the muck. It doesn't creep into your mind and make you scared to walk alone under a full moon, though. So if you think you can stomach the blood and want to see Nicholson and Pfeiffer doin' their thing, buy some microwave popcorn, sit back and watch it on video, because you can afford to miss it in the theaters.