Reviews

Andrew Robinson's "April Showers" is like Oliver Stone's "World Trade Center." We relive a day that stunned the world. We look for triumph over tragedy at the most intimate level.

It is an intense film. The MPAA found its content disturbing. I disagree. What they meant was that it unlocks the deepest feelings of innocence lost.

The softest targets, we all are. Protectors unprotected. The hero inside ignored. The survivor looking over the dead. The dead looking over those still standing.

The history of the world in fewer days than God took to create it.

And who is left to create charity, hope, and faith?

The answer comes from a director with a sure hand, in real life a young playwright at Columbine High School 10 years ago whose next leading lady was to be a student named Rachel Joy Scott.

A California PI is called to New Orleans and the locals start turning up dead. This is a relaxed thriller full of Southern kooks and cranks. Great cast, well-known director, and of course the worldly Ross MacDonald (aka Ken Millar), the master of the why-dunit. The plot unzips pretty quickly with Paul Newman the detective running into several women and the men they have to put up with. It's all about how many of these women he'll be able to protect. It's fun to watch Newman keep his cool in one crazy fix after another. The film holds up pretty well because the story is character-driven and every other scene is shot in a colorful location. Good alternative to watching a re-run of your favorite crime drama.