AUTO FOCUS (Paul Schrader, 2002)

Reviewed: November 1st, 2002

Auto Focus is staler than those haven't-been-touched-in-years, poorly wrapped pretzels in the back of my pantry. Most of the film's grievous errors have already been nicely summated in other reviews, but let me catch anyone up who's been outta town.

Grievous error #1: Recall the Law of Syllogism.

(a) Auto Focus is a biopic about the life and times of Bob Crane.
(b) Biopics fall to pieces if the real-life person whose life is being detailed is not interesting.
(c) Bob Crane's life was not interesting.

Ergo, Auto Focus falls to pieces.

Perhaps it might be unfair to definitively say Bob Crane's life wasn't interesting, as I, and I imagine you, dear reader, personally never knew the guy. So lemme at least say this: Bob Crane's life was not interesting as recounted by Auto Focus, a movie which is predicated on two simple, shaky hands:

Hand 1: Crane adored women and loved to have sex (Crane particularly adored the female species' "tits," as is made clear to the audience in a painfully gratuitous/out of place voice-over/mini-montage; in general Auto Focus' use of VO is weak and random, one of those films that thinks it can get away with just using VO at the beginning, middle and end, A.K.A. whenever the screenwriter hasn't done their work proper and needs a quick, lazy way outta their self-inflicted pinch).

Hand 2: Crane maintained a wholesome facade (star of Hogan's Heroes and family man that he was).

Doth Mr. Paul Schrader really not recognize tons of people love to have sex, yet possess/maintain a plain exterior? In fact, one might argue, this description applies to a great frickin' deal of the human race.

(Note: Please don't whine about how that's the movie's point, i.e. Crane was just a normal, self-proclaimed healthy guy, and it's unfair how his sexual addiction got the best of him. Cause to that nonsense, I reply: Too fucking bad for him, he should have been more discerning. Poor judgment doth not a worthwhile characterization make.)

Grievous error #2: Repetition galore! Bob Crane loves to fuck. Bob Crane loves to fuck. Bob Crane loves to fuck. Bob Crane loves to fuck. Bob Crane's love-to-fuck hurts his marriages. Bob Crane's love-to-fuck hurts his career. Bob Crane's love-to-fuck hurts his marriages. Bob Crane's love-to-fuck hurts his career. Bob Crane loves to fuck. Bob Crane loves to fuck. Bored yet?

Grievous error #3: Speaking of those Bob Crane marriages, I submit Rita Wilson as Crane's (presumably first) wife for the Most Thankless Performance of the Year Award. The poor woman has approximately two scenes very early on in the film and then is completely ignored until their divorce (they don't even have a scene talking about the divorce... it just occurs outta the blue). I wanna know what happened behind their closed doors. Why doesn't Wilson ever confront Crane w/r/t his sleeping around? Where's all the marital discord that was so obviously there in real life? This stuff is ripe for dramatic tension (which is virtually nonexistent in Auto Focus) and inexplicably goes unexplored.

Grievous error #4: Willem Dafoe plays John Carpenter (not the director), an on-the-cutting-edge-of-technology, as-sexed-crazed-as-Crane opportunist who [SPOILER WARNING] might have murdered Bobby.

Initially Auto Focus had duped me into believing this character would be as interesting as he sounds in a one sentence description. What a shame, then, that Auto Focus ultimately manages to depict him just as lamely as Crane (if not more so).

Grievous error #5: Paul Schrader didn't write Auto Focus. Here is a man whom easily ranks among cinema's greatest screenwriters. His scripts for Taxi Driver and Raging Bull are among the best ever written. Why would he direct a script he didn't write when he's infinitely more talented than guy who did write the damn script?

Grievous error #6: Compounding grievous error #5, Schrader is waaaaaaaaaaaaaay off his directing game. The third act of this film is one of the most trite, laughably overwrought chunks of 2002 filmmaking. Bob Crane's life is in the shitter....... let's shoot everything on monochromatic, grainy stock!!! Bob Crane's life is in the shitter....... let's shoot everything handheld!!!

Are there any directorial techniques more amateurish and ineffective?

That Said,

Greg Kinnear's performance is pretty terrific and deserving of a much better context. The set decoration/art direction/production design/costume design are all impeccable.

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