Starring Samuel L. Jackson, Colm Feore. Screenplay by George Dawes Green
based on his novel. Directed by Kasi Lemmons. (AA) 105 min. Opens March 16.
In a performance that's both powerful and utterly ridiculous, Samuel L. Jackson
plays Romulus Ledbetter, a mentally ill homeless man who gave up a career as
a classical pianist and composer to go live in a cave in a Manhattan park. In
the best stretches of The Caveman's Valentine, the viewer shares Ledbetter's
visions, like the man-moth creatures that flutter about a cathedral as he plays
piano and the menacing green lights emanating from the Chrysler Building, which
Ledbetter believes are sent by a mysterious enemy.
It is only in these sequences that director Kasi Lemmons -- the actor
who made her directorial debut with the excellent 1997 indie Eve's Bayou
-- has a sure grip on the picture. Otherwise, it's a confusing and
confused mix of genres and tactics. After a young man freezes to death
outside the cave, the movie unsuccessfully tries to shunt these
fantastic depictions of Ledbetter's mental interiors into the more
conventional mode of a murder mystery, with Ledbetter serving as a
particularly rumpled Columbo. What makes Jackson's performance
ridiculous is that his character seems more like an ambling detective
with a weird gimmick (he's nuts!) than the towering figure of mythic
significance that Jackson and Lemmons intend him to be.
These problems are compounded by the tendency of George Dawes
Green (who based the script on his own novel) to fill his plot holes
with pretentious hoo-hah. As it turns out, the dead man was a model and
boy-toy of David Leppenraub (Colm Feore), a photographer who portrays
angels in homoerotic, Mapplethorpe-style contexts and who spouts
platitudes about art and suffering.
Lemmons' direction often overcomes the script's shortcomings, and she nails
scenes like the dreamy sexual encounter between Ledbetter and Leppenraub's sister
(Ann Magnuson) and the way in which the white people watching Ledbetter play
piano clearly regard him as some splendid trained animal. But for all the efforts
of Lemmons and Jackson,
The Caveman's Valentine is so incoherent, it
makes less sense than one of Ledbetter's conspiracy theories.