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Show 'Stick' features a cast of exaggerated characters A Classic Recommended Good double ff iture material Time-killer For masochists - only by ROBIN MOENCH contributing writer Stick "Stick" is a tale of crime, drugs and big bucks set in lush, tacky South Florida. It's adapted from a book by mystery writer Elmore Leonard, who also wrote "Hombre" and "Mr. Majestyk." Although he had a hand in writing the screenplay, Leonard isn't happy with the results, according to a recent interview in Time magazine. "They've taken out the plot and put in machine guns and scorpions," he laments. And maybe he's got a point. There does seem to be something missing here. It could very well be a plot. Instead of a well-constructed story, we get a cast of overblown characters. Stick is Ernest Stickley (Burt Reynolds, who also directed). He's a "stirbird," fresh out of prision after serving seven years for armed robbery. "I always seem to end up on the thin ice," he says. And practically from the first frame, that's where we find him. With jail pal Rainy (Jose Perez), he sets out to run a $5,000 errand for an obese drug duke named Chuckie (Charles Durning). "From Bogota to Istanbul, nobody's smarter, nobody's no-body's slicker, than Chuckie," says Chuckie. Guess who ends up a pancake on the sidewalk after a long fall at movie's end? Chuckie is louder than the Hawaiian shirts he wears and has a pill problem. And he's not half as smart as the local godfather he deals with. Nestor (Castulo Guerra) is a Latin smoothie who wields power through a scary voodoo-type religion that has something to do with scorpions, severed ears and dead chickens. Stick and Rainy are sent to Nestor's henchmen to deliver a steel valise packed with cash. For a past offense, Nestor also wants one of Chuckie's henchmen dead. Chuckie ("Who is this bozo?") chooses Stick, but it's Rainy who ends up face down in a puddle. In the melee Stick incinerates Nestor's men. Nestor then orders Chuckie to snuff Stick and Chuckie sends an evil albino named Moke to do it. Moke wants to do it because Stick called him "bunny eyes" and ran over his hat. All Stick wants is his $5,000. Stick goes to work for Barry (George Segal) as a chauffeur. Barry owns a boat that's big enough to run down icebergs and lives in a mansion that Architectural Digest would like to put on its glossy pages. He's a "crime groupie," says his ex-con houseman Cornell (Richard Lawson). And he tinkers with the stock market with the advice of hired smart cookie Kyle (Candice Bergen). That's the story, minus a few undeveloped elements like Stick's teenage daughter who's used as a hostage; an impish bargirl who keeps turning up; and a subplot about a creepy Hollywood producer who's trying to get up capital by implicating his investors in fraud. It's a skeleton of a story that doesn't hang together. You don't really believe in Stick and Kyle's quick-kindling romance or that Barry is bright enough to get rich. Although Bergen looks swell, she doesn't have much to do but wear a black nightie. She's supposed to be a cerebral financial ace, but she isn't given a chance to show us. Reynolds is low-key while other characters are exaggeratedly hyper. And some ot the language is too literary to come out of the mouths of real folks. Stick says Rainy is "gas bubbles and gator bait." Cornell calls Stick "cell-block stubborn." And Stick, theorizing about criminal activities says, "If you play that game sooner or later you lose." It sounds like book language. It's too bad more of the novel didn't make it to the screen. Maybe the dialogue wouldn't have looked so lonely. |