Storyville

Stars: James Spader (sex, lies and videotape, True Colors, Bad Influence, White Palace), Joanne Whalley-Kilmer (Scandal, Shattered), Jason Robards (All the President's Men, Parenthood, A Thousand Clowns, Melvin and Howard), Michael Parks (ffolkes, The Hitman), Charlotte Lewis (The Golden Child). A confusing and strung-out homage to Chinatown (with several scenes transferred near intact), Twin Peaks co-creator Mark Frost's maiden effort is a seedy story of greed and lust in the backwater bayous of Louisiana. James Spader delivers an overly calm performance as Cray Fowler, a nouveau riche attorney who is running for Congress. In his off time Fowler investigates the apparent suicide of his father some three years earlier. When Fowler is videotaped having sex with a prostitute (Lewis), and is later present when the girl's father is murdered, he goes looking for his blackmailer and finds a much bigger story relating to his father's "suicide." While the first hour of Storyville crawls, the second half picks up considerably as Fowler goes into court defending the prostitute (who's accused of murdering her father), squaring off against a prosecuting attorney who was his former lover (Joanne Whalley-Kilmer). Director Frost, who obviously has a taste for the strange, unloads both barrels in the courtroom sequence, an outrageous over-the-top scene that is the most memorable in the film. Good supporting performances from Jason Robards as the Fowler family patriarch and Michael Parks as a slimy homicide detective help offset the sprawling storyline. The eerie Oriental-flavored soundtrack by Carter Burwell is also a plus. Audience: Since Storyville made only a brief appearance in theaters, garnering less than a million in two months, there's a sizable home video audience who might be interested. The Twin Peaks connection will interest fans of that series.[DVD Review--Oct. 7, 2003--Columbia TriStar, 113 min., R, $19.95, avail. Oct. 14--In the past 10 years, I've become a big fan of Carter Burwell's soundtrack for Mark Frost's edgy little 1993 political thriller, so I was really looking forward to this DVD release. Unfortunately, it's pretty much disappointing all around: from the alternately soft and grainy full screen (why?) transfer to the muddy Dolby Digital stereo surround sound. Bottom line: a halfway decent film given a shoddy extra-less DVD release, this is not recommended.]