“ALTMAN MEETS GRISHAM”

By Raymond Benson

Eccentric, quirky, and often brilliant director Robert Altman had a hit-and-miss career spanning six decades. After a mostly spectacular run of cutting-edge comedies and dramas in the 1970s, Altman’s pictures in the 1980s faltered. He lost some of the value in his stock that he had gained after such hits as M*A*S*H and Nashville. However, he had a strong come-back in the 1990s with The Player and Short Cuts, and he made a few more interesting movies in the last ten years of his life.

One of these was The Gingerbread Man, based on an original story by legal-thriller author John Grisham. Apparently, Grisham had also tried his hand at the screenplay, too, and successfully sold it. Altman, however, rewrote it himself, and then Al Hayes (credited for the film’s screenplay) finished it. Curiously, the picture is more of an action crime-thriller than it is a legal-thriller.

British actor Kenneth Branagh plays an American lawyer from the south (and convincingly delivers the accent) who takes on as a client (and also sleeps with) a high-maintenance young woman (Embeth Davidtz) who wants to put away her crazy and violent father (Robert Duvall). Branagh must additionally and simultaneously navigate his dysfunctional personal life with his ex-wife (Famke Janssen) and kids, his sleazy private investigator (Robert Downey, Jr., in an entertainingly bizarre performance), and his client’s ex-husband (Tom Berenger).

There’s some good stuff here. While it cannot be placed in the upper tier of Altman’s oeuvre, it’s a solid middle-ground piece that owes much to the director’s penchant for never doing what one might expect. Hollywood lore tells us that the studio tried to pull an Orson Welles/Touch of Evil on him by re-editing the picture without Altman’s knowledge—but the director’s version tested better, so luckily that’s what we got.

Kino Lorber’s new Blu-ray restoration looks fine and comes with 5.1 Surround and 2.0 Lossless Audio. Robert Altman does his own commentary, a delightful voice from the past who ponders his film with detached amusement. Other supplements include the theatrical trailer and other Kino Lorber release trailers.

John Grisham fans may be disappointed by the lack of courtroom shenanigans, but Altman aficionados will appreciate The Gingerbread Man as another entry in the filmmaker’s hearty and diverse canon.

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