By EWAN McDONALD
(Herald rating: * * * )
At 75 Paul Newman is still cool. You may not remember the last time you saw him in a movie. After this, you will want to see the consummate movie actor in another one, and soon.
In the opening scenes, he appears to be
an old man para-lysed by a stroke. He can't move his body, he can't talk, he doesn't even look at anything. It's all an act: he's Henry, a veteran bank robber who has studied yoga in order to fake stroke symptoms so he can be moved from prison to a retirement home, which he figures will be easier to escape from.
Linda Fiorentino plays Carol, his discontented nurse, married to the same guy, Wayne (Dermot Mulroney), since high school. Henry fools everybody except Carol. She picks up clues and tries to coax him out of his shell with a lap dance.
That doesn't work so she abandons sex for more direct methods, and later that night Henry is dancing in the local tavern with Carol and her husband, Wayne. Carol realises that Henry is her ticket out of town: either he has a lot of money stashed away from all those bank jobs or he can help her steal some more, so the three end up as partners in an armoured car heist.
What happens next is incidental. Watch it for the sheer pleasure of seeing a man at ease with himself and his craft.
Running time: 89 mins
Rental: Today
