Idealistic new gym teacher at an all-boys Catholic boarding school, his alma mater after graduating there nine years ago, is warned by one of the priests on arrival that the students have changed over time, their attitudes towards each other have become malicious and their violent actions touched by evil. Overcooked melodrama from Robert Marasco's Tony-winning play is, at its core, a battle of wills between two veteran instructors: one, a sagging-faced, paranoid old taskmaster (James Mason) whom the students deplore and the other (Robert Preston) a gregarious, glinty-eyed teacher who has rallied the students to his side. When these men face-off, the material hints at something headier than what director Sidney Lumet and screenwriter Leon Prochnik really hope to present: the dehumanization of young men into soldiers of misfortune. Broadway showman David Merrick made an inauspicious debut here as movie producer, and his first mistake was to hire Lumet as director. Lumet, who specializes in his keeping his actors riled-up on-screen, wants to give us the shakes with bloody beatings, an eye-gouging and a desecration in the church (underlined by Michael Small's "scare music"), scenes which are nasty and unpleasant to sit through--and also time-consuming. The real drama, between Mason and Preston (with Beau Bridges caught in the middle), is nearly buried under the morass. Though ultimately too theatrical to feel honest, the performances by the principals are at least polished by the actors' professionalism, bringing substance to a picture caught in the balance between melodrama and its own horror-movie subtext. *1/2 from ****
Review of Child's Play
