Palmetto

Palmetto stars Woody Harrelson as Harry Barber, an ex-journalist who learned that honesty doesn't pay when he exposed a local graft scandal and was rewarded with a frame-up and two years in jail. So when temptation knocks, in the form of curvy Rhea Malroux (Elisabeth Shue), Harry is too eager to respond. A rich invalid's trophy wife, Rhea proposes to Harry that he help stage the kidnapping of her jailbait stepdaughter, Odette (Chloe Sevigny), in return for a cut of the ransom. Harry is clever enough to Linda Tripp his meetings with Rhea and Odette but too dumb to shut off the tape recorder when discussion gives way to heavy breathing, or to guess that, when the scheme inevitably goes horribly awry, he'll be the patsy.

Harrelson is famously good at stupid, but it's hard to sympathize with a hero who's dense as well as venal, especially since you'll anticipate the plot twists long before he does. Doesn't he ever go to the movies? And what about director Volker Schlöndorff, who gets the swampy Florida atmosphere right but errs seriously in casting Gina Gershon as Harry's nice girlfriend and Shue as the femme fatale, instead of the other way around? At least Shue's deliriously awful performance, which deteriorates from mere awkwardness to I'm-ready-for-my-close-up-Mr.-DeMille bug-eyed lunacy, adds some camp value to Palmetto's otherwise tedious proceedings. Opens Friday at the Holiday, Showcase, and Tri-Boro cinemas.

-- Gary Susman