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AUTO FOCUS Send This Review to a Friend
A film by Paul Schrader wisely chosen by the New York Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival, "Auto Focus" is an effectively acerbic drama based on the real-life character of television star Bob Crane, who met with a grim end. Greg Kinnear is dynamic as he depicts Crane leading a life of debauchery and linking up with John Carpenter, played by Willem Dafoe as a man who lives vicariously through Crane yet deeply resents him. Carpenter helps get him women and feeds his desire to photograph as well as bed them.
Beginning in 1960s Los Angeles, "Auto Focus," based on a book by Robert Graysmith and scripted by Michael Gerbosi, follows Crane's rise to fame though the television hit comedy "Hogan's Heroes" and his subsequent decline. Ron Liebman delivers a strong performance as Crane's agent, who tries to tone down his behavior, and there are also good performances by Rita Wilson and Maria Bello as women in the actor's life. Following Crane's brash adventures and obliviousness to the toll they are taking is entertaining, and yet the film is a shocker for the way things turn out, even if you know the real story in advance. Schrader is in top form.
The film has a zippy tone right from the slick credits and jaunty music, a signal of what's to come. As played by Kinnear, Crane seems to have no clue as to the devastating possibilities of the double life he is getting into. On the one hand he is promoting a clean-cut image. On the other he is cheating on his wife and having a good time with woman after woman and his hobby of taking nude or sex pictures of them and with them. Carpenter as an expert in the latest electronic equipment intrigues Crane with the new ability to record on videotape and that sets off a hunger for home movies that another star might have been afraid to be caught with having made.
There are overtones of homosexual feelings on the part of Carpenter, although these are never developed beyond suggestion and a funny discussion of what Carpenter's hand was doing on Crane's rear during one of the orgies filmed. As you can gather, the film doesn't shrink from nudity or candid dialogue. There is pathos as Crane's fortunes descend and his image is progressively tarnished.
By making the exploits seem so upbeat the film has it both ways, finding amusement in what the guys get up to but building a feeling of a dark underside that leads up to Crane's brutal murder with a tripod. We never know who did the deed, but a suggestion is there. Both Kinnear and Dafoe are outstanding. A Sony Pictures Classics release.
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