Chaplin

Starring: Marisa Tomei

Directed by: Richard Attenborough

RS: Not Rated

1992 Drama

All the nuances Robert Downey Jr. invests in playing Charlie Chaplin, the clown prince of the silent screen, are blunted by a skim job of a script and inert direction from that Madame Tussaud of film biographers, Richard Attenborough (Gandhi, Cry Freedom, Young Winston). The film follows Chaplin from his impoverished London youth through his Hollywood triumphs, his exile from the United States and his return in 1972 for what this film considers the ultimate accolade -- an honorary Oscar.

The star cameos (Kevin Kline, Dan Aykroyd, Diane Lane et cetera) barely register. Nor does the hero's dark side. The adoring Attenborough excuses Chaplin's arrogance as genius and his taste for jailbait as a yearning for his first love, fifteen-year-old Hetty Kelly, underscored by casting Moira Kelly as both Hetty and Chaplin's fourth and last wife, Oona O'Neill. The thrill of the ending, with real Chaplin film clips, only exposes the rest as a soporific.

PETER TRAVERS
RS 647