ULEE'S GOLD Peter Fonda, Patricia Richardson (1997, Orion, R, $99.99) As long as he keeps his camera tightly focused on the domestic dysfunctions of Ulysses Jackson (Fonda) -- Florida beekeeper, Vietnam vet, failed father, stoic grandfather -- writer-director Victor Nunez (''Ruby in Paradise'') strikes one note of fuddled human grace after another.
It's only when Ulee, helping his jailbird son out of a jam, gets involved with a pair of thugs and a cooler full of cash that Ulee's naively courts cliches. As for Oscar-nominated Fonda, he's a welcome, unsettling sight: Those shell-shocked blue eyes still hold the world at bay, but for once it works for the character he's playing. ''You are almost a good man, Ulee Jackson,'' says Richardson's nurse Connie, Ulee's love interest, ''but you try too hard.'' That about nails the movie as well.
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