Paul Schrader brings his typically cold touch to a typically hot topic -- the kidnapping of the California newspaper heiress by the Symbionese Liberation Army -- and produces a typically unaccountable absence of sizzle. Heretofore, this had been a topic which only the lowliest exploitationist (cf. Abduction, 1975), or one …

The initial half-hour develops a sharply observed contrast between the upright public postures and the crumpled private lives of POWs returning from Southeast Asia. Paul Schrader, the angry young scriptwriter, obviously has something to say about the lingering aftereffects of the Vietnam War, but he is not about to come …

The moviemakers, director Martin Scorsese and scriptwriter Paul Schrader, have started with an old-style Warner Brothers working-man premise and tried to cram their learning into it: existentialist philosophy from Sartre and Camus, homages to Bresson's Pickpocket and Diary of a Country Priest, lyrical sketches of New York After Dark styled …

Director Paul Schrader (or his boss) is anxious for you to understand that this parable of a present-day miracle worker, complete with stigmata, is meant to be funny. The winks and hints begin immediately, with a postmodern credits sequence of 1950s-ish drawings and mismatched typefaces, and they continue relentlessly by …