Nothing good comes out of "Playing God," a pointless Faustian medical thriller anesthetized with clichés about a busted surgeon whose synthetic heroin habit lands him in with the dregs of the Los Angeles underworld. As "X-Files" actor David Duchovny's first starring role, this mediocre melodrama about redemption and retribution is less than scintillating. Actually, it is downright embarrassing. Ineptly directed and predictably scripted, "Playing God" penalizes both its rising star and moviegoers with implausible plot twists, cornball situations, and klutzy villains. Perhaps if the filmmakers had taken their straight, sober-minded drama and played it as broad comedy the film might have been more entertaining and less moronic. The Mark Haskell Smith screenplay is the stuff of which pulp fiction classics are created. Blazing shoot-outs, careening car chases, smart-aleck dialogue, eccentric criminals, and a blast-from-the-past soundtrack, featuring pop tunes such as the Bee Gee's "Jive Talking," flesh out what essentially constitutes a thin, one-dimensional character study. Under Andy Wilson's lackluster directing, these solid elements make for a soggy saga. A graduate of British TV shows such as "Cracker," Wilson never generates the adrenaline rush or visceral thrills that "Playing God" desperately needs to slam it into hyperkinetic overdrive. The filmmakers plunge their hapless hero into harm's way, but he never appears to be in real jeopardy. Wilson and Smith strive to make the murderous antics in their storyline appear surreal, but these results are hopelessly farcical. Especially annoying is Wilson's obvious video-editing style that employs geometric wipes as transitional bridges between episodes. As a doctor who has fallen from on high, Eugene Sands (David Duchovny) spends his time now getting high. What should qualify as cinematic irony in Smith's script winds up as comical incongruity. One night while he's scoring his junk in a dive of an L.A. bar, Sands witnesses a brutal shooting. When nobody calls 911, Sands intervenes and uses his ingenuity to save the wounded man. As it turns out, the poor slob worked for international smuggler Raymond Blossom (Timothy Hutton). Blossom is a wacky psycho who'd double-cross his own mother on the flip of a coin as well as a fashion designer's nightmare. Sands finds himself suddenly being smothered by Blossom's offer of works and drugs. The young, disadvantaged doctor doesn't know quite what to think. Blossom requires Sands' considerable medical talents to save a Russian hit-man who has information vital to Blossom's criminal interests. Initially, despite some misgivings, Sands agrees to perform the surgery and pocket a cool $10-thousand dollars. Before Sands can cruise into the sunset, a scheming, Dagwood Bumstead-esque FBI agent (Michael Massee) recruits Sands as his material witness to back up the person working undercover in Blossom's motley gang of Metallica rejects. Meanwhile, Blossom's sultry moll Claire (Angelina Jolie) complicates matters. Initially, she admires Sands, but she doesn't trust him. Things go incredibly wrong for everybody when a gang of vengeful Russian hit men invade Blossom's posh premises. They gun down one of Blossom's henchmen and put a bullet through Claire's chest. Before "Playing God" grinds predictably to its harebrained conclusion, the movie has Claire and Sands become lovers. Everything in Smith's script hangs on sudden reversals that are more stultifying than startling. Most ridiculous is Sands' unconvincing metamorphosis from a drugged out, self-depreciating loser to a resourceful, jaw-clenched action hero. Sands' fight with the sharp-shooting show-off Cyril (Andrew Tiernan) in a car is particularly unrealistic. Wilson's efforts to make "Playing God" different are doomed by his derivative approach. He bungles what should have been a minor film noir thriller. The story comes apart early on because the chain of events lacks dramatic cohesion. The final car chase starts out promisingly. Blossom and Claire dive into a truck, and as Sands follows them, two identical trucks breeze into the picture on either side of Blossom's ride. Sadly, Wilson does nothing original here, and the rest of the chase is a yawner. Nothing exciting occurs probably because their low budget couldn't afford any car crashes. The shoot-outs are staged with little panache. Most jarring of all is the surgery vignette enacted on a pool tale in an isolated hillbilly biker bar where Sands doctors the wounded Claire. Meantime, the FBI agents are so incompetent that a couple of brainless bad-guy buffoons can smash into their safe house and blast them into oblivion with little difficulty. The cast struggles with Smith's pseudo-cut dialogue that calls attention to the preposterous nature of the script. In the middle of the climactic car chase, Hutton's villain berates his struggling Claire for trying to disrupt the big auto chase. When movies indulge in self-mockery, you know that you're in trouble as an audience member. Presumably, by letting the characters poke fun at the plot twists, Wilson and Smith both hoped to distract spectators from the contrived quality of the story. Their well-intended attempts backfire miserably, and "Playing God" looks goofy. As the good guy hero who realizes the error of his ways, Duchovny maintains a poker face throughout the laughable proceedings. The filmmakers seem more intent on endorsing a didactic, anti-narcotics message than consistency of character. "Playing God" might have played better had Wilson and Smith kept their outlandish hero more strung out and challenged than straightened out and scrupulous. Duchovny's voice-over narration in the style of the old film noir detective thrillers seems more heavy-handed than handy. Jolie does little more than look pretty and pout her abundant lips. The movie takes a time-out to let the hero and the heroine bond with each other without shedding their clothes. As Sands' scumbag foe, Hutton drums up pathetic nastiness. Credit composer Richard Hartley with contributing a bouncy theme for the film. Die-hard "X-Files" fans beware: Scrub this one.
Review of Playing God
