Apt Pupil . Tucson Weekly . 11-02-98

Apt Pupil

DIRECTED BY: Bryan Singer

REVIEWED: 11-02-98

If ever we needed proof that no one truly knows how to beat an idea into the ground until it's mashed, bloody and dead like Stephen King, proof has arrived. The master of overstatement is back, this time with a lovable-Nazi-in-the-suburbs story. How bad is the Nazi? He's so bad he puts kitty cats in the oven. King, who wrote the novella on which the movie is based, should not bear the blame for this alone; screenwriter Brandon Boyce and director Bryan Singer (of The Usual Suspects fame) have truly wasted their energies on this gorgeously shot, utterly boring film. Ian McKellen makes a go of it as an aged Nazi officer living quietly in an American suburb, but this role is simply too silly for his talents. Teen heart throb Brad Renfro is eerily convincing as the self-satisfied high-school senior who is at first fascinated and ultimately corrupted by the older man, though he's so unlikable it's hard to care. The first hour of this movie consists of Renfro and McKellen sitting around talking about war crimes--a sort of My Dinner With A Nazi. Then the long knives and sledgehammers come out...but it's too late, much too late.

--Richter

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