April 16–23, 1998

movie shorts

Suicide Kings

Christopher Walken plays a Mafia don held hostage by a quintet of rich kids (Henry Thomas, Sean Patrick Flanery, Jay Mohr, Jeremy Sisto and Johnny Galecki), in the hopes that he will be able to help Thomas retrieve his kidnapped sister. The Young Hunk Five all turn in decent performances—although Flanery spends too much time working on his wannabe Brad Pitt head-tilt—but Walken trumps them all with a sly, self-satirizing performance that is all the more impressive for the fact that he spends the whole movie taped to a chair. Director Peter O'Fallon has an unsure grasp of style, needlessly cutting away from the action in arch Tarantino style, and the movie's pointlessly convoluted, unconvincing conclusion only furthers the impression that The Usual Suspects may be the worst influence on young filmmakers since Jaws. (See Sam Adams' interview with Christopher Walken.)

—Sam Adams