Doc Hollywood

Starring: Woody Harrelson

Directed by: Michael Caton-Jones

RS: Not Rated

1991 Comedy

In a pleasurably low-key comedy that pits small-town values against big-city excess, director Michael Caton-Jones (Scandal, Memphis Belle) struggles to evoke the vintage corn of Frank Capra. Michael J. Fox stars as Ben Stone, a doc driving cross-country to begin work as a $600,000-a-year plastic surgeon. But when he crashes into a judge's fence in Grady, South Carolina, Stone is sentenced to perform a few days of free clinic service in this "Hee Haw from hell."

Can our hero find happiness in a burg where people say "fiddlesticks" instead of "fuck"? Seems he's tempted, what with pretty Julie Warner around as a divorced mother who studies law and regularly swims nude. Grady's no redneck town either; it boasts several blacks, a Germanophile mechanic and a homosexual, all living in harmony with such crackerbarrel types as a crusty old doctor (Barnard Hughes), a bearish mayor (David Ogden Stiers), a Daisy Mae clone (Bridget Fonda) and a hunky insurance salesman (Woody Harrelson).

The actors treat these characters with a refreshing lack of condescension. And Caton-Jones, a Scot, shows real flair and feeling for American quirks. But the script, credited to four writers, is too tame. Capra knew that rubes could be just as tangled as city slickers. His films had bite. For all its antic charm, Doc Hollywood is disappointingly toothless.

PETER TRAVERS
RS 612