'Apt Pupil' disturbs the soul

By SCOTT FOUNDAS
Film Editor

By the time 16-year-old Todd Bowden (Brad Renfro) purchases an SS uniform for ex-Nazi Kurt Dussander (Ian McKellan) and proceeds to make him march around his own house wearing it, you realize that Bryan Singer's "Apt Pupil" is something more than Hollywood's run-of-the-mill Stephen King adaptation. Here, Singer carries King's commonplace creepiness to its most extreme heights. The result is a psychological thriller that gets under your skin and makes you shifty and uncomfortable as it unfolds before your eyes.

Singer knows a lot about how to unsettle an audience, and "Apt Pupil" can be a disturbing film to watch even during some of its most dramatically weak moments. The film serves as a great leap forward for Singer over the gimmicky game playing of the trite "The Usual Suspects" and here, at least for the first two-thirds of "Apt Pupil," Singer demonstrates admirable reserve in his fleshing out of several singularly unbelievable scenarios. It's a rather impressive testament to Singer's abilities that the dress-up-and-march scene(which will no doubt help make "Apt Pupil" notorious) manages to play completely straight, when it so easily might have seemed a bit over-the-top.

Of course, Singer is exceptionally fortunate to find himself blessed by the casting of one of our greatest contemporary actors in a most despicable and difficult of leading roles. As Dussander, McKellan triumphs in one of the juiciest parts he has ever sunk his teeth into, building the cantankerous German as an intriguing chameleon of a man with a wily countenance and a complex mind more sinister than even Bowden can imagine. Screenwriter Brandon Boyce provides McKellan with a series of delicious opportunities to ham it up (particularly during a hilariously awkward dinner party sequence), but McKellan resists the temptation to go over the top, making Dussander an even more powerful and fascinating study in skillful control.

"Apt Pupil" chronicles the escalating series of mind games and deceits that ensue when overachieving high school student Bowden uncovers neighbor Dussander's criminal past and threatens to expose the aging Nazi's identity. In exchange for keeping silent, Bowden requests that Dussander allow him access to his most detailed recollections of his time in the SS. Everyday after school, Bowden will come over to Dussander's house and ask to hear more stories about the war and, in order to keep the kid quiet, Dussander complies.

As time passes between this oddly incestuous pairing of surrogate grandfather and grandson, an intriguing turning of the tables is set in motion, with Bowden and Dussander constantly struggling to maintain the upper hand in a relationship built entirely on manipulative desire. It's a shame that the filmmakers never really exploit the oddly homoerotic undertones of the Bowden/Dussander relationship (and of the relationship between Bowden and guidance counselor David Schwimmer).

At the same time, one of the refreshing strengths of Boyce's coy script and Singer's sleek direction is that neither of them feel the need to offer any overt exposition concerning why both Dussander and Bowden find themselves attracted to the darkest possibilities of human consciousness. They simply are that way - two sadistic soulmates fortunate enough to have found each other - and the wistful glisten in Dussander's eyes reveals just how much he likes it.

Unfortunately, the young Renfro is hardly an acting match for McKellan, and their prolonged battle of wits and wills ultimately runs no danger of reminding anyone of Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine in "Sleuth." Renfro is perfectly adequate for most of "Apt Pupil," but he's a lot more believable when Bowden is still just a curious small-town innocent than as the manifestation of suppressed evil he ultimately becomes. Renfro simply can't keep up with McKellan, and he lacks the necessary experience and subtlety to fill in the character holes left by Boyce's script. He's often left with a blank stare when the wheels in McKellan's head are turning overtime.

The bizarre relationship at the center of "Apt Pupil" is one exploding with horrific and darkly comic possibilities, many of which are eagerly captured and explored by Singer, even if McKellan occasionally seems to be the only one getting it. In the film's final act, however, Singer betrays his own best intentions and those of his cast by letting "Apt Pupil" collapse into a meretricious horror show full of blaring sirens, things that jump out at you in the dark and even the walking dead. Not only does Singer not seem to know how to end his film, he seems to lose all sense of tact in the confusion, bogging "Apt Pupil" down with a bevy of misplaced murder and hospital shenanigans that make one long for Lars Von Trier. What began as an unexpected and discomforting exploration of man's capacity for menace devolves into precisely the sort of in-your-face monster movie that isn't uncommon at all.

Copyright 1998 by the Daily Trojan. All rights reserved.
This article was published in Vol. 135, No. 37 (Monday, October 26, 1998), beginning on page 11 and ending on page 13.