THE ALARMIST

The Alarmist starts as a modified Robin Hood where "the den" is a circa 1954 sushi restaurant, and the merry men have been compressed into several burglar alarm salespeople bent on income redistribution. Anyone familiar with Los Angeles will realize the timeliness of their "rob the rich" scam in which Heinrich Grigoris (Greg Tucci) boosts the sales of his alarms by staging robberies in the neighborhoods of potential clients. The twist in Grigoris' scheme is Tommy, the new salesman played with adorable, bumbling style by David Arquette. A natural at the hook, the Tommy's moral sensibilities are deeply troubled by Grigoris' less-than-honest sales strategy, which he markets to Tommy under the "rob the rich to feed the poor" label. While Grigoris feeds scruple-free off of the paranoid West Los Angeles psyche, Tommy complicates the plot until even Robin Hood risks entrapment.

The film that results from this tangled plot is uncategorizable. The first half leans towards comic drama when Tommy beds his first customer, a wealthy widow almost twice his age (Mary McCormack). The romance that ensues is the source of some genuinely funny interchanges as Tommy (innocent and sincere to the point of incredulity) gets knocked around by McCormack and her teenage son, both of whom run in faster lanes than he. When the son (Ryan Reynolds ) walks in on a steamy moment, Tommy tries to apologize in a fatherly manner, but finds that the son (a worn veteran of libido) takes good-hearted revenge by describing past sexual exploits that leave Tommy speechless.

Beyond this high-grade sitcom, one of the appealing possibilities of The Alarmist is the voyeurism offered by the "door-to-door salesman" frame. Sadly, the possibility of venturing into the mansions of West Los Angeles and meeting the natives remains largely unexploited. While Tommy does go door-to-door, the characters he encounters are not archetypal Angelenos, but a stereotypically elderly market. A little closer to the mark and this movie would have many movie-industry types squirming in their seats, but The Alarmist is estranged from the hip alarm-buying populous of aging baby boomers. Gale and her son are a closer approximation; the aesthetic is vaguely right, as is the "advanced" sexual attitude, but they're too down-home to be authentic. As a cultural satire, The Alarmist's humor seems more directed at an outdated Midwest than an urban L.A.

The scenes of romantic comedy and social satire are short-lived, ending abruptly when the movie takes a turn for the serious. Though the humor in the first part of The Alarmist is a little off-kilter, one hopes that it will be honed by the movie's conclusion. But that possibility is obliterated by the new murder mystery plot that takes over in the second half. Whatever credibility the script had up to that point is undermined by the oddity of the shift, making the movie a Quentin Tarantino imitation gone awry; the macabre violence and odd moralistic overtones undercut Grigoris' Robin Hood resonance. After a dramatic moral battle in which Tommy and Griorgis are at each other's throats in a good 10 minutes of suspense, the moment of moralizing in cut in favor of Kentucky Fried Chicken, where they end up discussing murder over a 12-piece chicken bucket.

In general, The Alarmist suffers from a kind of multiple personality disorder. Lines like "stop or I'll shoot" and "I love her and you took her away" alternate with weirdly sophisticated monologues on security and trust. The plot aims to depict paranoid modernity but misses, venturing off into the surreal as it ticks through comedy, romance, tragedy and documentary. The aesthetic attempts to depict low-class L.A. kitsch (the 1954 sushi joint, Tommy's family home in the outer 'burbs), but lacks many key touches. Especially lacking is the cool, retro music soundtrack one would associate with such a picture--the orchestral back up tunes whine of missed-opportunity. What is strangest is that in spite of all of this, The Alarmist turns out to be a very entertaining movie. Though one is left feeling incredulous by the turn of events, there is something fascinating about the incongruity. No one aspect of the movie is particularly lifelike; but the unpremeditated weirdness of it all, especially in light of the omnipresent pretense of normalcy, is very familiar. The film points to a divine understanding of the utter strangeness of things.

The real credit in The Alarmist must go to the actors. Like Mt. Rushmore, their place in the surroundings is hard to surmise, but they define it anyway. They convince the audience of what is happening, and sell the surreal with their gregarity. David Arquette is set with a particularly difficult part in the role of Tommy, who must be both densely naive and a stunningly talented salesman. His innocent pursuit of a sophisticated older woman has a good shot at being the new classic in the older woman-younger man scenario. Kate Capshaw is similarly adept in this situation; she is seductive without being evil, and perfectly outrageous when she is introduced to Tommy's provincial family.

Most endearing in spite of his sleazy role is Stanley Tucci. Though the ending could read as a reproach to Grigoris, he ends up on top, reigned in if not transformed. Like Robin Hood, he has the miraculous ability to bend morality and its most loyal adherents without making either immoral. By the end, one is convinced of the justice of his scheme since even with his cheating, there remians genuine goodness in him. It is hard to sort out what was what and who was right, but in the end they're all endearing. If robbing the rich puts food on their tables, so be it.