How Do I Hate Thee?

MANY, MANY YEARS ago, while Sally Field still flew over the bell towers of San Juan, Burt Reynolds appeared in a film called Deliverance and proved that he could act, as well as do a credible southern accent. Since then, however, he has frittered away his modest talents on vapid star vehicles and misbegotten "adventure" flicks like Smokey and the Bandit and the immortal Cannonball Run II.

Heat

Screenplay by William Goldman

Directed by R.M. Richards

At the USA Copley

None of these forgetable films, though, are quite as bad as Heat, an impossibly dull plod through the Vegas underworld. Reynolds--transformed into a Mexican by the careful application of some Ultra-Tan Lotion--stars as Nick Escalante, professional chaperone and "master of edged weapons." Even after chewing on it for three days, I cannot think of word scathing enough to describe Reynolds' somnabulatory performance. He's so wooden that you want to build an addition out of him. He stumbles through the moronic plot like the newly-resurrected, his face frozen into a tanned grimace, with not a single synthetic hair betraying the slightest expression or emotion. As for the story?

OH, WHAT'S the point? This is a ridiculously bad movie; I saw it on Tuesday and by the time you read this column it will probably have completely vanished from the theaters, only to reappear Monday in cardboard boxes on video stores shelves throughout the nation. If there is any justice in this forsaken world, the cellophane will go undisturbed until the Apocalypse, when the damned souls will be forced to watch it for eternity.

Wait; there is one good line in the movie. Burt asks this wimpy Bostonian character if he ever hunts, and the guy answers, "No, not since Bambi." There. I've saved you five bucks. I imagine I could bash the flick for a few more paragraphs, but it's no fun; it's like mocking a leper. It's got enough problems already.

Instead, I would like to offer the distributors of Heat a few suggestions on what to do with all the extra prints of the film they will have on their hands:

1. Cut them up into a million guitar picks.

2. Drape them from the stone waterfall in Copley Place.

3. Give them to Christo so he can wrap a bridge or something in them and call it art.

4. Throw them into their neighbors' trees on Halloween.

5. Cut them into individual frames, enlarge them, and then sell the results as wallet display photos.

6. Throw away the film and use the reels as Frisbees at the company picnic, or better yet, pile the reels on top of one another to make a few nifty side tables or stools.

7. Hang themselves.