Apt Pupil . Newcity Chicago . 10-26-98

Apt Pupil

DIRECTED BY: Bryan Singer

REVIEWED: 10-26-98

Bryan Singer's first feature, "Public Access," marked the director as a very serious young man, and his second, cultish success, 1995's "The Usual Suspects," brought him to the attention of a larger audience. His compelling, ambitious "Apt Pupil," made with an extraordinary degree of swooping, gliding visual rigor, distills Stephen King's novella wherein a high-school boy, Todd Bowden (Brad Renfro) nurtures his inner Nazi with the help of an escaped war criminal, Arthur Denker (Ian McKellen). With the performances Singer draws from the pair in the game of intergenerational cat-and-mouse, you wish he had gone farther, deeper, in examining how Todd's fascination with the crimes of the Holocaust lead him to toss away much of his humanity. With Bruce Davison, Elias Koteas, David Schwimmer. 112m. Panavision.

--Ray Pride

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Other Films by Bryan Singer
The Usual Suspects

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