Not for all tastes. Writer-director David Cronenberg's appropriately-loose adaptation of William S. Burroughs' cult 1959 novel--his script inspired more by Burroughs' life than by his literature--this tale of a drug-addicted exterminator lost among perverted American expatriates in Tangier is satisfyingly grotesque for about an hour. Counseled (or rather, egged on) by demonic talking roaches, the exterminator takes to writing a book after accidentally killing his wife; fleeing New York City, he meets by chance his dead spouse's lookalike and her husband, a quietly menacing homosexual with a typewriter fetish. Not particularly well-made, though Cronenberg certainly gained the trust of his actors and succeeds in not making them look foolish. Begins intriguingly but gradually loses steam, the shock factor having worn off. Judy Davis connects with the audience in an extraordinarily immediate way, but Peter Weller is too laconic to carry the rest of the weight. *1/2 from ****
Review of Naked Lunch
