Frank Ochieng is a guest critic who also writes reviews for his own personal website, located here.

To become a Guest Critic for CINEMA 2000, please notify David Keyes.

Review Uploaded
11/15/02

Starring: Greg Kinnear, Willem Dafoe, Rita Wilson, Maria Bello
Directed by: Paul Schrader

Frank’s film tip: Paul Schrader wants us to smile for the camera as we look into the seedy playtime procurement of the late Hogan’s Heroes TV star Bob Crane in the raucously inviting but uneven biopic Auto Focus

Auto Focus is a revealing albeit uneven biopic about one man’s quiet depravity and the concoction of temptation that fueled his quest for compulsive, risqué pleasures. Sixties television sitcom icon Bob Crane was such a complex and tragic figure in that his excess taste for addictive impulses (in this case a penchant for kinky sex and the rush of voyeuristic vitality through an interest in photography and video to help heighten his pornographic proclivities) eventually caused the seemingly clean cut star of the popular CBS-TV comedy series Hogan’s Heroes to meet an untimely end when the carousing and cavalier 50 year old actor was found bludgeoned to death in an Arizona motel room in June of 1978. To this very day, Crane’s murder still remains an elusive mystery almost a quarter of a century later.

What made Crane so remarkably intriguing is that his celebrity status (yes, that dreaded “F” word known as fame) was almost a badge of privilege to invite this perplexed individual to indulge in his perverse and precarious obsessive behavior with groupies and gadgets. Writer-director Paul Schrader (Hardcore, Affliction) has a merry old time while serving up the celebrated sexcapades procurer by wryly painting the disturbed and cheeky performer as a paradoxical pariah. Crane was likable yet gently self-absorbed and arrogant. He was brought up as straight-laced and disciplined yet demonstrated a need for tip toeing to the “dark side” via his carnal appetite for nudie magazines and wild women who would gladly express their frisky womanly charms to the handsome huckster. Schrader shows us that Bob Crane was perhaps one of the designated poster boys for what’s wrong with the seedy side of show business and its superficial license to welcome an overrated sense of self-importance. However, the stardom of Bob Crane didn’t develop the dysfunctional baggage; it merely reinforced itself as a potent tool that this man could exploit in order to cater to this conflicted soul’s struggle with his loose-ended demons that were long in place before his media-making glory as a radio DJ-turned-TV actor.

As a filmmaker, Schrader dutifully helms Auto Focus by examining his protagonist in a refreshingly unconventional way. By that I mean he never makes Bob Crane as an apologetic antihero nor does he easily give in to the notion that the mischievous thespian was a forced victim of his own circumstances. In fact, Schrader clearly presents the self-assured Crane as a keenly competent cad who knew fully what he was doing and had extreme giddy fun doing it in the process. Crane most likely would tell you that his alleged perverted tendencies were natural and that it was his choice to dab around in the manly arena of “ tawdry tarts and technology”. When you’re a revered international television star with resources (mainly money and willing women) at your disposal and a hunger for a naughty malaise of female frivolity and other weird erotic exploration then you most likely would be compelled by an indelible self-image much like Bob Crane to partake in the forbidden path of exercising your corruptive “hobbies”.

Still, one of the major concerns about Auto Focus is its awkward style and format in which the narrative is presented. Schrader has a distracting manner about the way the movie spirals into a self-destructive mode by constantly highlighting his fornicating fable with repetitive strung-together scenes that are middling and occasionally stretch into long-winded vignettes. There is no real plot to speak of and the suspense quotient depends on how much you are willing to endure the titillating tactics of Crane’s sizzling sex drive that further encourages his videotaping ventures. Plus, the film hardly puts any meaningful stock into the two Crane marriages and bypasses what could have been something that was relatively insightful into why Crane strayed so much from his supportive spouses and preferred the extra curriculum of scooping shady babes and organizing animated orgies outside the household. With that in mind, the movie does manage to show how warped and fragile the male ego can be when it’s directed by a mind polluted with an embracing provocative flesh-loving fantasy and the apparent inability to stop this very same urge.

Although Auto Focus comes off as a turgid expose’ of a troubled horny middle-aged TV personality whose career may have dwindled to the point where he was doing dinner theater engagements later in life just to keep his acting career afloat, the film does boast some exceptional performances in spite of the high-minded kitschy material. Kinnear is exceptional in the role of a disillusioned man whose passion for the fast lane of strip clubs, sex-oriented stimulation and the videotaping antics of his sad and slimy personal lifestyle makes for a telling tale of desperation and despair. Kinnear portrays Bob Crane as the amiable life of the party with a self-inflicted illness and unctuous demeanor that he readily denied and ultimately excused as “liberating” and “therapeutic”. There was obviously a missing void in Crane’s existence and the end result was the decision to lose himself in the chaos of his seedy-minded and misguided sexual adventures. The vagueness to Kinnear’s characterization is somewhat refreshing because how can one define Bob Crane when the guy himself didn’t really know who he was or what he was searching for emotionally or psychologically within his own psyche. Kinnear’s roguish depiction of Crane is startlingly stark and candid as the film shows this man at his uncontrollably worse. Long after his star have faded post his Hogan’s Heroes heyday, Crane needed to invigorate his self-worth and starved ego and what better way to do that then to get caught up in the delusional dementia of his frothy underbelly playground of camera-happy sluts and mocking X-rated home movie productions.

Schrader manages to tweak fine performances from the supporting cast as well, especially Willem Dafoe as the sleazy sidekick Rob Carpenter who made an everlasting joyride out of hanging around with Crane while basking in the advantageous shadow of the actor’s accessible fringe benefits regarding the whole delicious decadent scene. And the contribution of both Rita Wilson and Maria Bello as the suffering Crane ex wives are exceptionally affecting although they aren’t left with much of anything to do. You would almost wished that Schrader took some gumption and let the audience see how really wounded the essential females in Crane’s domestic universe were because his selfish and depressing actions had just about the same hurtful impact on his loved ones as it did to this habitual womanizing junkie with a perpetual fetish for the camera lens.

Auto Focus could have been tightened up on its storyline structure and in the process it could have added a little more depth and intrigue to the sordid details that defined the complicated artist known as Bob Crane. There was certainly a lot of potential to make Schrader’s caustic showcase more riveting and laconic. And quite frankly, I have seen a slew of boob tube specials that provided better food for thought behind the mystery surrounding Crane’s promiscuous activities and overall pesky persona. In any event, this exposition is undeniably effective in that it presents yet another instance where a touch of notoriety through the deceptive medium of entertainment can take an ominous turn for the unprepared soul who’s not ready to face the unpredictable boundaries of their distorted fantasies or harsh realities.

This sketchy feature about the eventual demise of a colorful TV star and his highly noted ribaldry may have been shooting for something that’s solidly scabrous. And Schrader does hit his stride in the film’s intermittently charged overtones. The dramatic effect is pleasingly palatable in convincing doses although you can’t help but notice the inherent condescension at times. Nevertheless one still ends up applauding the effort that Schrader puts forth even though this flawed but saucy saga lingers on in the tradition of a rudimentary redemption drama.

Frank rates this film: ** ½ stars (out of 4 stars)