Movies
Great Balls of Fire
Dennis Quaid as Jerry Lee Lewis (Would-Be King of Rock-and-Roll) achieves the almost unbelievable: he overacts to an altitude above that of even Richard Gere as the Jerry Lee aficionado of Breathless. What these two movies have in common, besides Lewis's music, is director Jim McBride, which tells us something -- warns us something -- about him. (And yet: Winona Ryder, if only by comparison, manages to seem fresh and natural, though not quite young enough, as Lewis's thirteen-year-old bride.) All of Quaid's head-tossing and eye-popping and jaw-dropping (faintly amusing as mimicry) might be meant to portray a conscious put-on, but it then becomes incumbent on him to hint at what's behind it. There would appear to be nothing. And the adopted conventions of the Hollywood "biopic" are equally empty and secondhand. With Alec Baldwin and Trey Wilson. 1989.
Reader Rating:
MPAA Rating: PG-13
