PREMIERE.COM REVIEW

A Chorus Line scribe James Kirkwood's 1972 cult novel (and later play) about an actor, a burglar, andsome New Year's Eve bondage wasn't obviously a perfect fit for the big screen, but then Guttenberg wasn't the most obvious man to adapt it. The Police Academy mainstay cowrote, directed, and stars in this stagy drama that lurches between tones like a faulty elevator.

The action takes place during one anguished New Year's Eve (updated to the present and moved to Los Angeles from the novel's New York setting), when sad-sack actor Jimmy Zoole's (Guttenberg) life takes a dive. His one-man-with-puppets Hamlet production gets cancelled, his girlfriend (Watros) leaves him after a screaming match, and a burglar (Boyar) breaks into his apartment for the third time. In a rage, Jimmy knocks the thief unconscious, then hog-ties him to the kitchen countertop, only to find that his veterinarian had left a message telling him, on top of everything else, that his beloved cat has died.

The thief, Eddie, as it turns out, is gay, and he and Jimmy spend the evening taunting, insulting, then consoling each other. Will Jimmy decide to switch teams? The question gets picked up, dropped abruptly, then picked up again, with never enough character development — or chemistry between the two leads — to believe it. Guttenberg, covered in flop sweat and beard stubble, attacks the role, but spends most of the movie frowning sourly and searching for the right emotions. His debut direction is adequate but never overcomes the contrivances in the plot, as when beefy E! Entertainment reporter A.J. Benza, playing a queeny gang-banger, provides unintentional laughs when he bursts into the apartment eager to violate Jimmy's manhood.

— Kerrie Mitchell