BLESS THE CHILD
Rated R - Running Time: 1:47 - Released 8/11/00
You know, you give someone an Academy Award, and suddenly she
thinks she can act. Kim Basinger, who got the 1997 supporting
actress nod for L.A. Confidential
and followed up with her gut-wrenchingly inept performance in
I Dreamed Of Africa,
is on hand to make us all cringe again, but this time the concept
is on an even par with her inability. A lame retread of last years
God-vs.-Devil film End Of Days,
which was not a particularly good movie in and of itself, Bless
The Child is an unholy waste of time, money, and celluloid.
Not only is Basinger unable to generate the slightest trace of
sympathy with her wooden performance, but Rufus Sewell, this year's
model of Satanic evil, is about as scary as an angry uncle. (You
know he's mad, but he doesn't really have any significant power
over you.) Meanwhile, 7-year-old Holliston Coleman, who plays
the titular child, isn't really asked to do anything but look
scared (she only has about 5 lines). The only actor able to convince
is Jimmy Smits as the seminary-student-turned-FBI-officer, who
delivers a modicum of believablility playing the same reliable
good guy he has portrayed many times over.
The film, written by Thomas Rickman and Clifford and Ellen
Green, based on the novel by Cathy Cash Spellman, and directed
by Chuck Russell (The Mask), opens during Christmas time
in New York City, when we are shown and told that there is a special
star in the sky just like the one in Bethlehem all those centuries
ago. Maggie O'Connor (Basinger) is a divorced psychiatric nurse
unable to have children, who is visited by her heroin-addict sister
Jenna (Angela Bettis). It seems that Jenna is able to have
children; in fact, she's got one with her, and after a few terse
verbal exchanges, she leaves the child in Maggie's care. As little
Cody grows (eventually played by Coleman), it becomes clear she
is different, and doctors attribute the girl's head-banging, seldom-speaking
behavior to autism. She is enrolled in a Catholic "special
needs" school where she begins to make progress.
When Cody is six years old, however, Jenna returns with her
new husband, the famous drug-rehab guru Eric Stark (Sewell), and
the couple demands custody of the child. Naturally, after caring
for Cody for six years, Maggie is reluctant to give her up to
a couple of cleaned-up druggies. Especially since Eric has horns
and a pitchfork. Just kidding. As it turns out, Cody is a new
Christ, and Eric is a representative of Satan who is attempting
to capture her and turn her to his demonic ways. But the kid has
difficulty deciding, since her uncanny ability to spin plates
could land her a lucrative job in the circus.
If this film were just written badly, or just acted badly, it might have some value. But here we have a double negative. Basinger and company seem unfortunately suited to the hackneyed material, and director Russell's inclusion of a few hallucinatory bats and rats is not enough to make it worthwhile. *