Film Reviews

THE OMEN With the double-whammy of The Omen and Superman Returns, director Richard Donner holds the unique distinction of seeing sequels or remakes of two of his most popular films arrive in theaters in the space of a fortnight. For those interested in keeping score, round one goes handily to Donner. Released in 1976 on the coattails of the demon-child craze ignited by Rosemary’s Baby and The Exorcist, the original Omen may not have been a masterpiece of modern horror, but it was a classy, creepy affair, gussied up with lively character turns by the likes of David Warner, Leo McKern and Billie Whitelaw — and oh, that apocalyptic Jerry Goldsmith music! Unwisely taking a page from the Gus Van Sant Psycho primer, Irish director John Moore slavishly reproduces the Donner film almost shot for shot and line for line, with Liev Schreiber stepping uncertainly into the shoes of Gregory Peck, as the American diplomat in Rome who, rather than telling his wife (Julia Stiles, pinch-hitting for Lee Remick) that she’s had a miscarriage, unwisely accepts a hospital priest’s offering of a supposedly orphaned baby boy. The actors sleepwalk through their roles (save for Rosemary herself, Mia Farrow, chewing the scenery with termitelike gusto as the boy’s satanic protector), while Moore, who previously directed Behind Enemy Lines and the Flight of the Phoenix remake, seems completely at a loss without any planes to crash. By the time Schreiber finally gets around to checking his adopted son’s head for the mark of the beast, I was checking my watch. Recommended only for those without DVD players or who refuse on principle to see any movie made before they were born. (Citywide) (Scott Foundas)

THE WHORE’S SON Ozren (Stanislav Lisnic), the sensitive young émigré from the former Yugoslavia at the center of this likable trifle by Austrian director Michael Sturminger, lives inside a Freudian prison — appropriately enough in Vienna — where he worships his glamorous mother, Silvija (played by the exquisite Russian actress Chulpan Khamatova), a hooker and a loving, if erratic, parent. A whole village of strenuously colorful types raises Ozren in his cramped apartment above a brothel, but he only has eyes for mom, which creates problems when she takes off, leaving no address, to set up shop as a pricey call girl on the other side of the tracks. Which rather undercuts the conceit that these are ordinary, decent people living lives — as prostitutes, garbage men and pimps — as best they can. Despite a contrived creakiness in the plot, a climax all too broadly hinted at in the opening scene and the occasional dive into blowzy-hooker cliché, some characters are nicely observed, especially Ozren’s Uncle Ante (Miki Manojlovic), instinctively tolerant yet clinging pathetically to the tattered shreds of communism. In the end, Sturminger’s virginal insistence on draining the mother-son relationship of all eros also drains it of interest. (Music Hall) (Ella Taylor)