Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997)
Directed by Clint Eastwood
Written by John Berendt & John Lee Hancock

I didn't expect to be drawn in by Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, mainly because everyone else seems to have been, but I must say, it's a pretty effective courtroom drama with the usual twists. Clint Eastwood directs it with the same pragmatic literalism he brings to every one of his projects, bolstering my argument that while Clint is very cool, and seems to be a really nice guy, he's a bit thick.

Kevin Spacey and John Cusack are good, as is The Lady Chablis, a drag queen whose actual sexual identity is plain to see the moment she's introduced, yet Clint seems to want to wrench a Crying Game-style "surprise" out of it. He may be a tough gunslinger and a ruthless cop, but evidently Clint has absolutely no gaydar.

Crucial information is left out so as to keep you hooked through many long and unnecessary scenes, which fortunately are full of color and quirk. It's sort of like Anatomy of a Murder via "Northern Exposure," though had it been described to me that way, I really would have resisted ever watching it. As with a good sweeps-week "Law & Order," the strengths end up outweighing the cheesiness.

Semi-interestingly, the day after I watched this, Kevin Spacey was reported as having recanted a story he told London police about having been mugged in a park and his cellphone stolen. This weird little yarn directly parallels Spacey's plotline in Good and Evil, in that the big "twist" of the movie entails his revelation of a slightly, yet significantly, different account of what actually happened. In both cases, too, he tries to dodge assumptions about his sexual preferences, despite glaring circumstantial evidence screaming "GAYWAD."

The ending is totally hokey, and there's a seriously hackneyed "wise voodoo priestess" character who makes The Oracle in The Matrix seem cutting edge … shit, she almost makes Mr. Miyagi seem cutting edge. No more "wise mentor" characters in cinema, please.

All this said, I still sat through the whole thing and enjoyed myself. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go use Kevin Spacey's cellphone to call Val Kilmer.

Review by Timothy Hay