A young, happily married New Jersey police detective comes into possession of new evidence regarding the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. It's a photo taken at the grassy knoll in Dallas of a man in an overcoat carrying a rifle. The detective (Evans, who also wrote and directed) finds it interesting enough to contact a local professor (Noth) who has written a book on the subject.
Noth is skeptical. So is Evans' wife. So is everybody else Evans contacts, his fellow cops, the FBI, despite the fact that other curious historical events come to light. For instance, the man in the snap shot was a mob member who was murdered the day after the assassination, arriving in Chicago from Dallas.
It's about this point that we have a close up of a mysterious man's mouth, speaking into a phone, with a mob boss at the other end, asking questions like, "How much does he know?" The camera, never showing the man's face (it turns out later to be Tony Lo Bianco in a terrible wig), pans across the man's desk, showing a couple of emblems of the mysterious man's importance, including a pair of eyeglasses from which the lenses have obviously been removed. (They might reflect the lights or the camera or the crew.) It all ends with a corrupt and criminal government agency firmly in charge and the innocent Evans and his family about to be extinguished.
The plot isn't entirely unreasonable but it's written perfunctorily, as if the writers themselves were more interested in safety than in originality. The dialog has no sparkle. None of the incidents is remarkable. The logical links are weak. Evans is captured by the mob, drugged by one of those drugs that exist only in the movies, beaten half to death, and dumped in the meadowlands. He next appears with a scratch across the bridge of his nose and a not unsightly bruise on his cheek. Clobbered by mob experts and he doesn't even have a black eye.
The location shooting only hints at industrial northern New Jersey, land of pizza parlors, leafy suburbs, awesome slums, and diners. ("Broadway Danny Rose" does a better job.) The acting is on a par with the rest of the production. Evans the actor underplays, but he allows the other performers to overact to the point of embarrassment or to use quirks that do not illustrate the character being played but rather the fact that they know they are in a movie.
I'll give one example and then quit. The blandly handsome Evans takes his blandly pretty blond wife to a political meeting. (Brief appearance by former Mayor Dinkens of New York, who demonstrates that if he's going to continue a career in show business it ought to be at the political end instead of movies.) Up rushes a high-school flame of Evans'. She hugs him and gushes over him until Evans introduces his wife, who is standing next to him. A nice, cool job by the former flame. But the wife frowns until the flame leaves and then glares up at her husband, as if he's committed some grievous sin. That's what I'm calling "overacting." It spells out emotions that the viewer already is sensitive enough to imagine. The wife's frozen smile would have been enough.
But the director can't even leave the EXTRAS alone. In a bar, Evans suspects someone is watching him. He walks up to the man, there is a brief conversation, and Evans shoves the man back against the bar and grabs a wallet out of the man's pocket. He's innocent. Evans apologizes and walks away, while the man makes some sharp remark and exits the scene. In the immediate background, an African-American couple gape open mouthed at the action, their eyes bulging with disbelief. It's the director's responsibility to see that these things don't happen.
Nothing much of substance comes from Evans' investigation except that the man of mystery causes all sorts of misfortunes to visit anyone connected to Evans -- but we already knew that would happen.
Some movies are so bad they're a little funny. Some are bad and boring. This one is a little embarrassing.
Noth is skeptical. So is Evans' wife. So is everybody else Evans contacts, his fellow cops, the FBI, despite the fact that other curious historical events come to light. For instance, the man in the snap shot was a mob member who was murdered the day after the assassination, arriving in Chicago from Dallas.
It's about this point that we have a close up of a mysterious man's mouth, speaking into a phone, with a mob boss at the other end, asking questions like, "How much does he know?" The camera, never showing the man's face (it turns out later to be Tony Lo Bianco in a terrible wig), pans across the man's desk, showing a couple of emblems of the mysterious man's importance, including a pair of eyeglasses from which the lenses have obviously been removed. (They might reflect the lights or the camera or the crew.) It all ends with a corrupt and criminal government agency firmly in charge and the innocent Evans and his family about to be extinguished.
The plot isn't entirely unreasonable but it's written perfunctorily, as if the writers themselves were more interested in safety than in originality. The dialog has no sparkle. None of the incidents is remarkable. The logical links are weak. Evans is captured by the mob, drugged by one of those drugs that exist only in the movies, beaten half to death, and dumped in the meadowlands. He next appears with a scratch across the bridge of his nose and a not unsightly bruise on his cheek. Clobbered by mob experts and he doesn't even have a black eye.
The location shooting only hints at industrial northern New Jersey, land of pizza parlors, leafy suburbs, awesome slums, and diners. ("Broadway Danny Rose" does a better job.) The acting is on a par with the rest of the production. Evans the actor underplays, but he allows the other performers to overact to the point of embarrassment or to use quirks that do not illustrate the character being played but rather the fact that they know they are in a movie.
I'll give one example and then quit. The blandly handsome Evans takes his blandly pretty blond wife to a political meeting. (Brief appearance by former Mayor Dinkens of New York, who demonstrates that if he's going to continue a career in show business it ought to be at the political end instead of movies.) Up rushes a high-school flame of Evans'. She hugs him and gushes over him until Evans introduces his wife, who is standing next to him. A nice, cool job by the former flame. But the wife frowns until the flame leaves and then glares up at her husband, as if he's committed some grievous sin. That's what I'm calling "overacting." It spells out emotions that the viewer already is sensitive enough to imagine. The wife's frozen smile would have been enough.
But the director can't even leave the EXTRAS alone. In a bar, Evans suspects someone is watching him. He walks up to the man, there is a brief conversation, and Evans shoves the man back against the bar and grabs a wallet out of the man's pocket. He's innocent. Evans apologizes and walks away, while the man makes some sharp remark and exits the scene. In the immediate background, an African-American couple gape open mouthed at the action, their eyes bulging with disbelief. It's the director's responsibility to see that these things don't happen.
Nothing much of substance comes from Evans' investigation except that the man of mystery causes all sorts of misfortunes to visit anyone connected to Evans -- but we already knew that would happen.
Some movies are so bad they're a little funny. Some are bad and boring. This one is a little embarrassing.