Desperate Measures

Unlike recent failures to script scheming psychopaths and their nemeses (Kiss the Girls, Switchback), Barbet Schroeder's Desperate Measures offers a viscerally engaging bad guy and gives him intellectually engaging things to do. The screenwriter, of course, intended us to empathize with FBI agent Frank Connor (Andy Garcia), whose kid has leukemia. Naturally an urgent marrow transplant becomes necessary, and naturally the only genetic match is maximum-security offender Peter McCabe (Michael Keaton), who has enough jail time to last him well into the afterlife. McCabe agrees to the transplant, gets transferred to the hospital, and plots a brilliant escape from the ER. Connor's dilemma: if he -- or anyone else -- kills McCabe, his son may die.

We may feel for Connor, but this is McCabe's story. Keaton shows a maleficent strength when he's mobile (igniting ER personnel, taking the random hostage, etc.); when he's subjected to Schroder's soul-probing close-ups, however, he can't quite maintain his hollow gaze or relay that freak spark of humanity. Still, analyzing Keaton's struggle with McCabe's moral void is more involving than the spectacle of Garcia choking back tears and then trying to justify breaking every rule in the FBI handbook. It's fun to watch Keaton swim in uncharted thespian waters, if only to see whether he'll drown. At the Harbour Mall, Holiday, Showcase, Tri-Boro, and Woonsocket cinemas.

-- Robert Furlong