LOOKING FOR RICHARD (64)

Directed by: Al Pacino

Starring: Al Pacino, Kevin Spacey, Alec Baldwin, Winona Ryder

The Pitch: Excerpts from "Richard III" intercut with behind-the-scenes sequences of the cast rehearsing and talking about it, plus random comments about Shakespeare in general from folks-in-the-street and assorted "names".

Theo Sez: There's something rather irritating at the core of this semi-documentary - its strenuous attempts to be "casual" end up looking every bit as affected as the pompous Shakespearianisms it purports to disdain. The basic problem is that it's phony - we know Pacino, despite his ingenuous questions, is thoroughly familiar with the play, and that the various actors we apparently eavesdrop on are only acting natural - but it never tips us the wink to show that it knows we know (the way that, e.g. F FOR FAKE does in its Welles-as-conjuror prologue) : instead it makes a big deal of its apparently random structure (as if it wasn't all put together in the editing-room) and pointedly includes things like a telephone ringing halfway through a scene, or star-struck passers-by interrupting the filming (as if Pacino and Co. couldn't have just re-shot the scene, had they wanted to). The effect is of a rather forced jollity, a bit like your "wacky" (but rather sad) history teacher coming to class in a 19th-century uniform to make the lesson more "fun" ; there's the impression of a pill being sugared, Shakespeare made accessible for the masses by Regular Guy, baseball-cap-on- backwards Al. Yet, even beyond its value as a teaching-aid - which, to be fair, is what it's mostly intended as - it's an exuberant entertainment, its boundless energy and impressionistic wealth of gags, ideas and images over-riding all objections ; more surprisingly, as the excerpts from "Richard III" gradually get longer and more intense, it builds into an unexpectedly powerful (if obviously abridged) version of the play, meatier and more memorable than the clever-clever Richard Loncraine adaptation (which seemed too busy re-imagining the material to convey its dramatic force). Despite itself, a qualified success.