Deep in the woodsy residential district of an exclusive resort island off the coast of New England, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Andrew Sterling (Samuel L. Jackson) is setting up the stereo in his newly purchased home.
Downtown, in the dingy police station that is the domain of politically ambitious Chief Cecil Tolliver (Dabney Coleman), an unsuccessful car thief, Amos Odell (Nicolas Cage) is using his one phone call to order an extra-large pizza.
“Amos & Andrew,” written and directed by E. Max Frye, relates the intersection of these two different destinies, in a style that ranges from roaring farce to biting satire.
Though Frye, whose best-known accomplishment until now was writing the screenplay for Jonathan Demme’s subversive “Something Wild,” doesn’t always hit his target, it’s much to his credit that he has one. Comedies that are genuinely concerned with something are rare enough these days; tackling the subject of race relations makes “Amos & Andrew” seem madly courageous.
Frye has conceived “Amos & Andrew” as an original blend of classical, slamming-door farce and the social problem film-of “Bringing Up Baby” and “The Defiant Ones” (at one point, Jackson and Cage run across a field handcuffed together, in homage to Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier in Stanley Kramer’s liberal tract of 1958).
It isn’t an obvious combination, and it does take Frye a reel or two to get the momentum going. Spying Andrew through a window laboring over his stereo connections, next-door neighbors Phil and Judy Gillman (Michael Lerner and Margaret Colin) rush home and call the police, assuming that any black man in their neighborhood must be a burglar.
Responding to the call, Chief Tolliver (Coleman at his preening best) and his blindly loyal deputy, Officer Donaldson (Brad Dourif) have the house surrounded, and before long unleash a hail of bullets.
Only then does Tolliver discover that his burglar is actually a celebrated author of angry social dramas (his hit, with a nod to Preston Sturges, is “Yo, Brother-Where Art Thou?”). To get himself off the hook, he makes a proposition to his unlucky car thief: If Amos will enter the house, and pretend to take Sterling hostage, Tolliver will have a convenient scapegoat and the situation can be saved. Later, Amos will be quietly allowed to escape.
But once the hapless, working-class criminal and the prosperous minority playwright are bundled together, they discover that Tolliver has betrayed them both, in order to cut a finer figure before the network news crews that have now invaded the island.
Once again, shared adversity breeds brotherhood and understanding, though the relationship between Amos and Andrew is far pricklier and more complex than the friendship that formed between Kramer’s protagonists. There are three decades more of misunderstanding and prejudice to be straightened out, and not much time in which to do it.
Criticizing ethnic stereotypes means portraying them first, and there are times when Frye goes a bit too far. Both the portraits of the liberal, Jewish Gillmans (Phil was a member of the “Chicago 7” defense team, as Judy keeps reminding everyone) and the activist, Al Sharpton-like preacher (Giancarlo Esposito) who brings his protesting flock to the island seem excessively ungenerous. Too broadly drawn in comparison to the other characters, these figures are permitted neither growth nor sympathy.
But between his two leads, Frye is able to create a dynamic sense of give and take, of confrontation and dawning comprehension.
As the situation continues to escalate beyond anyone’s control, Amos and Andrew discover the deeper bonds that link them together, apart from the awful coincidence of their first names. Both are outsiders; both are naturally suspicious and insecure; both are running from their pasts.
As the straight man in the relationship, Jackson displays an unshakable dignity and poise; Cage is the wild, unpredictable one, both as a character and as an actor. Since his breakthrough in “Vampire’s Kiss,” Cage has found a special freedom on the screen, coming up with a constant stream of inventive choices and creative embellishments, poking behind the dialogue to find strange and funny new dimensions to his characters.
His Amos is a wonderfully vivid creation, bright but not in the ways that can do him any good, cursed with the fatalist’s sardonic sense of humor but blessed with the innocent’s irrational optimism. Hinting at a wide range of opinions and experiences, Cage gives Amos an amazingly rich interior life; the character exists with a depth that is rare enough in drama, almost unheard of in farce.
”AMOS & ANDREW” (STAR)(STAR)(STAR)
Directed and written by E. Max Frye; photographed by Walt Lloyd; production designed by Patricia Norris; edited by Jane Kurson; music by Richard Gibbs; produced by Gary Goetzman. A Columbia Pictures release; opens March 5 at the Burnham Plaza, Esquire, Pipers Alley, Webster Place and outlying theaters. Running time: 1:35. MPAA rating: PG-13. Strong language, sexual situations, substance abuse.
THE CAST
Amos Odell……………………………………………Nicolas Cage
Andrew Sterling…………………………………..Samuel L. Jackson
Phil Gillman………………………………………..Michael Lerner
Judy Gillman………………………………………..Margaret Colin
Chief Tolliver………………………………………Dabney Coleman
Officer Donaldson………………………………………Brad Dourif
