Cadillac Man (R)
Robin Williams plays Joey O'Brien, a lecherous car salesman, and
Tim Robbins is the machine-gun-toting prole who takes everyone in the
showroom hostage in an attempt to find out who has been fooling
around with his wife. The movie begins as a human comedy about Joey's
economic desperation and then turns into a canned farce — a comic gloss
on Dog Day Afternoon. Williams doesn't really get a chance to cut
loose, but he's charming anyway, and Robbins makes a beguiling crazy.
B-
Class of 1999 (R)
B-movie director Mark L. Lester has come up with an apocalyptic
cyberpunk delinquent fantasy — a trashy teen derivative of The Road
Warrior, RoboCop, and a dozen other retro-future movies. In the
not-too-distant future, America's high schools have been overrun by
heavy-metal hoods. The principal of Kennedy High brings in a trio of
android teachers whose disciplinary methods fall somewhere between
those of the Terminator and the Marquis de Sade. The story and
characters are strictly one-note, but Lester's visuals have a
comic-strip vitality. John P. Ryan, flashing his demented skeletal
grin, does an over-the-top turn as the most enthusiastic of the
robot educators. B-
A Show of Force (R)
As an American TV reporter working at a small station in Puerto
Rico, Amy Irving investigates the murder of two leftist students
and spends scene after stolid scene untangling the most banal of
cover-up conspiracies. The movie appears to have been made by people
who just caught up with Watergate. As an undercover agent, Lou
Diamond Phillips reveals a new insolence — he may have a future playing scoundrels. D+
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