The Peacemaker

If there was any question about George Clooney's acting ability, four feature films have proved that, stripped of his bat suit and out of surgical scrubs, he's little more than a thirtysomething armchair jock blessed with sufficient good looks to get paid the big bucks for mumbling insignificant lines in insignificant movies.

The Peacemaker marks the first film from the DreamWorks brain trust of Steven Spielberg, David Geffen, and Jeffrey Katzenberg. It's a tiresome, catch-the-terrorists formula starring Clooney as a maverick military-intelligence officer and Nicole Kidman as a nuclear-arms specialist with an Ann Taylor wardrobe and a G.I. Jane ax to grind. The plot, which revolves around a renegade Russian general and a hijacked cache of atomic warheads, feels a bit like True Lies without the campy fun. A few of the action sequences spark some thrills, and director Mimi Leder demonstrates a knack for visual flair, but there's too little to hang her cool camerawork on. Compared with his work here and in One Fine Day and Batman & Robin, Clooney's performance in From Dusk till Dawn begins to look like an Oscar-caliber performance in an Oscar-caliber film. Opens Friday at the Harbour Mall, Holiday, Lincoln Mall, Showcase, Tri-Boro, Westerly, and Woonsocket cinemas.

-- Tom Meek