Eastwood's 'Midnight' can't overcome own evils

Clint Eastwood's "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil," adapted from John Berendt's best-selling book, is the most compellingly flawed film of 1997, and the most offbeat work of its director's long career.

REVIEW
	Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil At Showcase

John Cusack stars as John Kelso, a fictionalization of Berendt and a freelance writer from New York enlisted by Town and Country magazine to cover an elite gala thrown by one of the wealthiest residents of Savannah, Ga., the enigmatic Jim Williams (Kevin Spacey).

In the hours after Williams' bash, Williams shoots Billy Hanson (Jude Law), a hot-tempered hustler, and claims self-defense. At this point, Kelso realizes that his Town and Country article is small potatoes. He could have a book on his hands.

So Kelso stays in Savannah, where he investigates the shooting and works in cahoots with Williams and his attorney Sonny Seiler (played by the delightful Australian actor Jack Thompson).

Eastwood opens the film with colorful glimpses into the folkways of Savannah, with its rigid social hierarchy and twisted Old South customs. The first hour plays like a comedy of manners, in which a bemused Cusack runs up against some lovably eccentric characters.

This motley crew includes a transvestite named the Lady Chablis, who plays herself in the film. Chablis is the movie's most affecting character, and she carries herself with grace and confidence.

But the film turns a little too conventional in its second half. We get some shopworn courtroom sequences, and even a corny scene where Cusack instructs Chablis to create a diversion so he can sneak into the morgue and play detective.

Eastwood's innovative spirit collapses and he begins to rely upon established forms. Nonetheless, the film's early scenes constitute some of the best work Eastwood has done behind the camera in his 20-film directorial career.

In the film's most uninspired turn, Kelso falls in lust with a local singer named Mandy Nichols (played by Eastwood's daughter Alison), but the shooting by Williams is so engrossing that the romance is only a distraction.

It is Spacey who truly owns this film. He can pack more nuance and suggestion into a single glance than Cusack has packed into his entire career. In Spacey's hands, Jim Williams is utterly beguiling. We want to believe him, though we know we shouldn't.

Cusack consistently falls flat in "Midnight." He seems unsure of the proper attitude to strike in relation to the fantastic and aberrant goings-on in Savannah.

And though the film is never boring, its running time of two hours and 40 minutes is certainly not an asset. Eastwood allows certain scenes to drag on too long, such as the ostensibly important but ultimately unsuccessful scenes involving a voodoo priestess named Minerva (Irma P. Hall).

Eastwood's career as a director is somewhat puzzling. His films run the entire gamut from predictable ("Firefox" and "Sudden Impact") to pioneering ("Bird" and "White Hunter, Black Heart").

While "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" falls somewhere in the middle of this continuum, at least we have the pleasure of spending an evening in the enchanting city of Savannah. Thank goodness it's not Madison County.

11-24-97