Our Flick of the Week is “Excess Baggage,” in which Alicia Silverstone from “Clueless” again plays the spoiled daughter of a wealthy father, but does so without repeating herself. In fact her character has a plan to make herself independently wealthy: She’ll stage her own kidnapping.
Her problems and the story begin when the car trunk she hides in is “innocently” stolen from the airport . . . along with the rest of the car. The car thief is played as an original kind of loser by Benicio Del Toro, an actor who declares himself as a star of the future with this performance. Talk about going though changes! His character not only innocently kidnaps an heiress; he and his partner (Harry Connick Jr.) also take $200,000 in mob money.
“Excess Baggage” has been written cute without being derivative of other movies. Rated PG-13. (star) (star) (star)
– HOODLUM. The colorful but all-too-familiar story of the battle between black and white gangs to control the numbers racket in Harlem. Mobsters “Dutch” Schultz (Tim Roth) and Lucky Luciano (Andy Garcia) butt heads along with the Harlem crowd that includes Clarence Williams III in a nothing role. You have to be a particularly good writer and director to make a mob film that is anything but a violent cliche. It’s been 13 years since Francis Coppola’s “The Cotton Club.” This film does not improve upon that one. R. (star) (star)
– SHE’S SO LOVELY. Nick Cassavetes directs an exciting screenplay by his late father, John. A standout cast includes Robin Wright Penn as a working-class drunk who is raped by a vicious neighbor. When her violent husband (Sean Penn) freaks out and is sent to prison, she takes up with a much more gentle man (John Travolta). The late Mr. Cassavetes directed a film called “A Woman Under the Influence.” This is a powerful variation on that theme — a woman tossed every which-way, physically and emotionally. R. (star) (star) (star) 1/2
– = New this week