THE SUM OF US (1995)

THE SUM OF US (Samuel Goldwyn, unrated) Russell Crowe, the young Australian actor who's being groomed to become the new Mel Gibson, has a Cupid's-bow smirk and the sleepy-seductive eyes of someone who has never entertained a moment of serious conflict. It's refreshing to see this take-it-easy dreamboat play a gay character -- Jeff Mitchell, a plumber living at home with his widowed father, Harry (Jack Thompson), who is so accepting of his son's lifestyle that he greets the guy's latest date with a barrage of winky-poo sexual puns. This adaptation of David Stevens' stage play is little more than a politically correct sitcom -- My Incredibly Tolerant Dad. Thompson's performance, which involves a lot of mugging into the camera, is so cutesy and benign it's insufferable (he's like Paul Hogan playing Harvey Fierstein's mom), and the romantic relationships are borderline kitsch; the characters pursue their respective suitors as casually as they drop Stevens' coy one-liners. But Crowe, with his wry Aussie deadpan, is an actor to watch. What he needs now is a role that will do for him what the Mad Max films did for Gibson -- let his beautiful, placid surface get good and riled. C

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