LEO is the kind of film few people will have heard of--and that your local video store dealer will try to get you to rent because he knows nothing about it, either, and wants you to check it out for him. That's what happened to me, at least. And with a cast this interesting, why not? Let me tell you why not. This is a very ambitious attempt to deal with themes of identity, child abuse, guilt, redemption and acceptance (all wrapped around James Joyce and his Ulysses, for Christ sake!)--with almost none of the requisite writing or directing talent to back up all that ambition. The director appears to have relied upon his good cast, who undoubtedly came aboard due to the ambitious script. But acting talent can only go so far; here, it stops well short of productivity. Elizabeth Shue is particularly wasted--emoting to beat the band in a role that is one-note (well, one-and-one-half) and tiresome. A young actor named Davis Sweatt does wonders with the main character as an adolescent, and Joseph Fiennes is fine, too. Deborah Kara Unger gets abused again (she's got to stop this sort of thing), Dennis Hopper is his usual nut case, and Sam Shepard's laconic and macho. By film's end, almost anything good has fallen away and what is left seems like pure pretension. It's rare to see so much possibility come to so little.
Review of Leo
