Homegrown (1998)

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reviewed by: Christopher Haney

Part straightforward comedy, part light-hearted whodunnit, all "grade-A smoke"; Homegrown tells the story of a group of marijuana farmers and the tangled web they weave. After their boss Malcolm is mysteriously killed, Jack, Carter and Harlan decide to go into the dope business for themselves while trying to figure out who killed Malcolm. Upon realizing that nobody knows Malcolm is dead and nobody is after their crop, Jack takes over and runs the business, assuming the role of both Malcolm and his associate. Along the way, they enlist the help of Lucy, Carter's "friend" and business associate. Several turns of events cause friction both inside and outside of the group, including run-ins with the mob, rival growers, "rippers" (people who after other people's crops) and mutual acquaintances. Will the foursome make the deal of the century and come out on top, or will they just go up in smoke? Be sure to sample this product to find out the answer!

Homegrown is wonderful in its acting talent and cameo appearances. Billy Bob Thornton takes top honors again, playing Jack with the sinister, yet fun-loving attitude we have grown to love and expect. Hank Azaria takes an unexpected turn as Carter (sleazeball extraodinaire complete with long hair and moustache), and Ryan Phillipe of I Know What You Did Last Summer fame is great in his paranoia and overall hot-headedness. Kelly Lynch takes a turn as the smart yet cunning Lucy, who has relations (business and otherwise) with just about every main character in the film. Now for the cameos... John Lithgow shines as usual as Malcolm, while Jon Bon Jovi is a dealer and Ted Danson starts off as a nice guy who changes into a psycho. Jamie Lee Curtis, Judge Reinhold and Jon Tenney also pop their heads in for this alternative look at California's agricultural trade.

With its moments of humor, suspense and outright paranoia, Homegrown has a little something for everyone. Whether it's a night alone or hanging with the buds, sample the Homegrown goodness and see why it's "the comedy that goes straight to your head."

Friday, May 8, 1998 Homegrown humor doesn't go to pot
By LIZ BRAUN

Dope farmers who witness their boss' murder quickly decide to harvest and sell the crop themselves. That's the story in Homegrown -- sweet and simple -- but a strong cast turns this one into a worthwhile black comedy. What happens to people when greed rears its ugly head is the basis of Homegrown, which stars Billy Bob Thornton, Ryan Phillipe and Hank Azaria as a trio of marijuana wranglers operating in Northern California. Thornton is the ostensible brains of the operation, Azaria a nervous horticultural expert, and Phillipe is more or less a field hand and the butt of most jokes. The film is not, thankfully, a pot comedy and we are happy to report that nobody says, "Oh, wow," even once. When their boss (John Lithgow) is killed, the boys decide to take matters into their own hands. A minor grass sale goes well, so they return to the fields, uncertain about who killed their boss or why, and risk all to get the rest of the dope and sell it. Money is involved. Big money. Their task brings Kelly Lynch, playing a dope packager who may or may not be trustworthy, into the story, and soon enough they encounter Jamie Lee Curtis as a hippie mother figure, Jon Bon Jovi as a family man and drug wholesaler, and Ted Danson, in a particularly hilarious cameo, as a mafia interloper. What keeps you watching Homegrown are the characters. Thornton, who rises to his new responsibilities, slowly takes over the work and then the life of his deceased boss. A love triangle of sorts develops with Lynch, Azaria and Phillipe. Everybody secretly plans how he'll change his life once the big money comes in. People alternate between paranoia and euphoria, dodging complications and investigating mysteries until it looks as if the whole deal will work out. The ending of Homegrown is entirely yahoo, but never mind. Stephen Gyllenhaal co-wrote and directed Homegrown and cuts his actors plenty of slack, which may account for the success of the humor. The whole story moves forward with an underlying tension, but you can't help laughing -- inept bad guys trying to bribe the sheriff, Thornton carrying a gun and running through the woods in a fancy dressing gown, lovers declaring themselves while each holds a gun on the other. Homegrown is low-budget and technically scrappy. Somehow, that serves the subject matter well.

Homegrown

Gone to Pot | Robert Horton

Homegrown turns out to be neither a Cheech and Chong throwback nor a serious look at the hemp-friendly subculture. It's staked out a much dicier place for itself: This film is both black comedy and low-key morality tale, with the usual pot jokes thrown in. Director Stephen Gyllenhaal has a very hard time finding the right balance of these different elements, but the movie does surprise you now and then. When one worker in the marijuana business describes his ambition to make enough money with one big score and then quit, another character asks simply, "Why quit?" Nobody has an answer; they never really thought that far ahead. Making enough money to get out of the racket is exactly the sentiment the caper movie always depends on, and it's refreshing that this film pokes a few holes in the usual plot.

Billy Bob Thornton, Hank Azaria, and Ryan Phillippe are a bumbling trio of pot harvesters; they work deep in the forest, tripping over each other and generally keeping out of harm's way. They will also occasionally sample the product. One day their boss (John Lithgow), already stone dead, is dropped from a helicopter in front of their eyes. They figure their cover is blown, but when the bad guys never show up, the threesome decide to harvest the latest crop themselves; they'll pretend Lithgow is still alive, deal with his usual customers and pocket all the profit for themselves, and get out of the business.

So the bulk of the film takes place with them holing up at accomplice Kelly Lynch's house, preparing the dope, and nervously looking over their shoulders to check whether the jig is up. Lynch is quite good at capturing that faded hippie-chick thing, and the role is a reminder of how often this offbeat actress is wasted. As for Billy Bob Thornton, he's content to let the other actors provide the comedy. This may be a mistake; Billy Bob, a distinctive performer, ends up fading into the background, which is not what you expect from the man who mm-hmm'd his way through Sling Blade. Thornton seems to step back and hand the movie to Hank Azaria, The Birdcage's cuptup (and "Simpsons" voice), who is more than ready to pull some focus for himself on the big screen. Azaria, hideously appointed in long black hair and patchy goatee, comes as close to capturing the panicky good humor of a druggie as any actor yet. There's something very touching about this obvious dimwit worrying about the impression the plotters will make during a prospective meeting: "We're gonna look like assholes!" To which Thornton answers, "We are assholes," in the film's most superfluous line.

There are some funny episodes along the way, such as the hot tub encounter with a local dealer (Jon Bon Jovi), during which somebody gets to speak the essential pothead line, "I don't know whether I'm sittin' down or standin' up!" There's also a droll scene involving a small-time sheriff (Judge Reinhold) who expects his usual payoff -- except that the boys, since they've never been involved in the business end before, aren't sure what the "usual" is. By the time the film gets to its semi-serious ending, which alludes to the finale of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Gyllenhaal and co-screenwriter Nicholas Kazan haven't quite found a way to give the journey any more heft than a puff of smoke. The film isn't bad, but you wonder what it's about.

Homegrown: 3 BEERS (Good movie, minor problems)

RATED R 95 MINUTES

Carter (Hank Azaria), Jack (Billy Bob Thorton), and Harlan (Ryan Phillippe) are employed by Malcolm (John Lithgow). Their job is to watch over Malcolm's multi-million dollar marijuana crop in Northern California. So when Malcolm is killed the three are not quite sure what to do next. They eventually decide to sell the weed and keep the profits while pretending Malcolm is still alive. Jack and Carter arrange to sell the crop to Danny (Jon Bon Jovi). To aid in the harvest they enlist the help of Lucy (Kelly Lynch), Cater's periodic love interest. As the time for the big sale draws near closer everyone is getting more and more paranoid and quite possibly for good reason.

Homegrown is a vastly different movie than the one portrayed in the trailers and commercials. While there is some of the silliness associated with drug movies, Homegrown is decidedly darker. If you are expecting a bunch of guys sitting around smoking and giggling there are some suprises in store. Actually since this is what I was anticipating the presence of a actual story was refreshing. It's fun to see how these hapless and oft clueless underlings deal with every workers fantasy, the death of their boss. This is a well writen film it keeps interests up and the felling of tension runs throughout. It's also well acted, Thorton and Azaria both gave good performances as did most of the crew. While it may be occasionally violent it is not gratuitous, it fits well into the story. Homegrown is at times a comedy and others a thriller, unlike many other films it succeeds in both respects making it a very enjoyable film.

Mr.Jeff

Homegrown 'Homegrown' is disjointed but manages a few laughs

by Shawn Levy

They're out there, in the drippy woods of Northern California and Southern Oregon, serious and well-armed, but v ery laid back. They have their own culture and community, their own laws and economy. They're living in the footsteps of the pioneers and the forty-niners, of outlaws and revolutionaries. Dope growers: salt of the earth of the drug world. In the spottily agreeable new film Homegrown, director and co-writer Stephen Gyllenhaal opens up the world of Humboldt County dope farmers with a mixture of genial stoner breeziness and overheated drama. The picture can't decide whether it's a farce, a thriller or a mystery. It's distractingly cast with famous faces, but the lead performers are solid, and the overall sensation of being exposed to an alternative universe is well-rendered.

Jack, Carter and Harlan are the growers in the center of the screenplay's maelstrom. Living in the open tending the crop of their mysterious millionaire boss, Malcolm, they spend their days smoking herb and playing with guns. It's pretty much all they're capable of: As Jack tells his colleagues with blunt honesty late in the film, "You're the biggest screw-ups in the history of dope dealing!"

By then, they truly have earned the title. Early on, Malcolm (John Lithgow) is brutally gunned down before their eyes. Jack (Billy Bob Thornton), Carter (Hank Azaria) and Harlan (Ryan Phillippe) think they've been set up by rip-off artists ("rippers" in the parlance of the trade), and they flee for their lives with just enough weed to cover their salaries.

'Homegrown' veers between antic doper comedy and sinister mystery

When they realize that nobody else knows about Malcolm's fate, they decide to harvest the rest of the $4 million-plus crop and sell it for themselves. To pull off the ruse, the brainy Jack must pretend to be Malcolm — and Carter and Harlan must avoid killing each other out of jealousy over Lucy (Kelly Lynch). Presently, they find themselves under the scrutiny of the mob, a suspicious coalition of local growers, real rippers and each other.

In the hands of Gyllenhaal ("Losing Isaiah," the made-for-HBO movie "Paris Trout"), Homegrown veers between antic doper comedy and sinister mystery, a palette that sounds more appealing than the film manages to make it. In a full-fledged thriller, the plot ought to be more central; in a full-fledged dope story (such as T. Coraghessan Boyle's novel "Budding Prospects"), the inanity of the drug life ought to be more pronounced. What's more, the string of cameos by well-known actors — Lithgow, Jamie Lee Curtis, Judge Reinhold, the suddenly ubiquitous Jon Bon Jovi, the horrendously miscast Ted Danson — continually interrupts the sense that we're being steeped in a real world.

On the other hand, the film has some real strengths. Gyllenhaal manages in several sequences to impose a dreamily stoned rhythm to the proceedings, for instance. And Thornton and Azaria are terrific, the former as a not-quite-as-sharp-as-he-thinks yahoo with real spine, the latter (best known recently as the houseboy in "The Birdcage") a dreamy hippie with a green thumb and a pragmatic streak.

It's tempting to assume that the reason Homegrown is so shapeless is that its makers were too, er, taken with their subject matter to see where it needed tightening.

It wouldn't be a crime, but it's a shame. Inside this occasionally aimless film sit parts of a top-notch thriller and parts of a top-notch satire. Neither, finally, gels, but the film offers some squirrelly fun along its way.

Stephen Gyllenhaal Homegrown (TriStar Pictures) R

it's worth $3.75 Homegrown is a marijuana noir, laced with subtle black humor and genuine moments of intense frenzy and tainted paranoia. The basic story revolves around a trio of NorCal marijuana harvesters -- Jack (Billy Bob Thornton), Carter (Hank Azaria) and Harlan (Ryan Phillippe) -- who unwittingly witness the murder of their boss Malcolm (John Lithgow). Rather than let the cash crop wither away, they enlist the services of Lucy (Kelly Lynch) and decide to harvest the buds themselves, eventually selling the loco weed to a resident wholesaler (Jon Bon Jovi). The catch is that since everyone thinks the three are nothing more than bumbling field hands, they pull a Weekend At Bernie's maneuver, fooling everyone concerned into thinking that Malcolm is still alive. They soon find themselves not only knee deep in sticky resin, but wrapped up with the mob, and avoiding raids from both anti-drug law enforcement and "rippers" (thieves who storm plantations and steal the precious plants before harvesting). To its merit, the film features some great natural performances from Thornton, Azaria and Lynch, and director Stephen Gyllenhaal creates an unnerving sense of tension throughout. However, the plot revolving around "The Big Score turning into the Big Set-up" is somewhat old hat and we've all seen Phillippe portray the naive/stupid/immature boy-man in too many other films. Not to mention that the numerous cameos -- Ted Danson, Judge Rienhold, Jon Tenney and Jamie Lee Curtis -- seem forced, as if these actors are trying to score some "indie" cred.

- Spencer Abbott

``Homegrown'' is a little caper movie about a trio of marijuana growers from Northern California who are forced to free-lance when their boss is gunned down. They pick the crop, process it, bag it and sell it to big-time wholesalers. Along the way, they get stoned and they get shot at. They keep busy.

Directed by Stephen Gyllenhaal, the picture is a strictly low-budget affair. The cost-cutting is most obvious in Trevor Rabin's score, which peppers virtually every moment of screen time with drum machines, rock songs and crashing chords, creating the sense that the actors are there solely to reinforce a point that the music is making.

Billy Bob Thornton, Hank Azaria and Ryan Phillippe play the hapless trio, and Kelly Lynch is the love interest. The movie's aim is that we should see the three buddies as lovable bumblers, but they come across as seedy. Still, the plot, which brings in local growers, thieving competitors and the Mafia, is brisk enough to hold interest in a superficial way.

The director's background in more A-list features (``Losing Isaiah,'' ``A Dangerous Woman'') shows in the number of famous faces in cameo roles: Jamie Lee Curtis, Judge Reinhold, John Lithgow and, best of all, Ted Danson as an affablebut psychotic mobster.

Homegrown

If Homegrown teaches us anything at all, it's that too much dope will mess with your head.

Stephen Gyllenhaal's woefully miscalibrated dramatic comedy about three backwoods California marijuana cultivators out for the big score falls victim to bad judgment almost every stoned step of the way.

At the root of a countercultural story that could have been hugely interesting is Gyllenhaal's inability to differentiate between slapstick comedy, testosterone-driven action and real drama. The serious scenes are played for gags, the pratfalls look contrived and the action is either annoying or unconvincing.

For further proof that even making a movie about the dope trade is a bust just waiting to happen, Homegrown features and wastes some of the finer talent in the business.

It starts at the top, with director-co-writer Gyllenhaal. His earlier work includes the even-handed, sensitive dramas Paris Trout, Waterland, A Dangerous Woman and Losing Isaiah.

Admittedly, Homegrown was made with a modest budget during some of the wettest weather in California history, but mud alone does not explain how the narrative got so bogged down.

Gyllenhaal must also be responsible for deciding his pot practitioners should play like blunt-sparking versions of the Three Stooges. No disrespect, but Billy Bob Thornton, Hank Azaria and Ryan Phillippe, you're not Larry, Moe and Curly.

The usually great Thornton is Jack, foreman of a crew that is growing, nurturing and guarding a pot plantation in deepwoods Northern California.

When their mastermind boss John Lithgow (see: wasted talent) is executed by a helicopter pilot on his way to the stash, Jack, Hank Azaria's greenthumb slacker Carter and Ryan Phillippe's terminally irritating kid Harlan decide to cut down some of the crop, make their wages and write off the whole thing as a bad trip.

They take the weed to packager Kelly Lynch, who puts them on to familyman wholesaler Jon Bon Jovi, and suddenly these clowns have more money than they ever thought possible.

From there, it is only a series of clumsy steps to harvesting the whole crop, running afoul of mob boss Ted Danson, screwing up the circumspectly powerful local community of growers, led by patently un-Earth Motherlike Jamie Lee Curtis, and generally making everyone mad as hell. And no one madder than the viewer. Though ostensibly a film about greed and morality, Homegrown fails to even provide an authentic backdrop for what is, after all, a picture of herbal culture.

Almost nothing rings true, from characterizations to narrative and score. About the only truly trusted images are those of the marijuana plants rising majestically in the forest. And, according to the production liner notes, they were made of silk. So they're bogus, too.

May 8, 1998

Ah, the late-August dead zone. When one has already seen the underwhelming Blade and has no desire to subject oneself to the universally despised The Avengers, what is a movie lover to do? Well, there are numerous second-run flicks like Dance With Me or Dead Man On Campus, but frankly I'd rather be shot in the groin. The last refuge: the video store, to sweep up some of the movie debris that fell by the wayside during the winter and spring.

Turns out there are quite a few interesting ones that got away--mostly independents and art-house flicks that rarely get a good showing (if one at all) in mid-sized Eugene, Oregon. I had four videos in hand by the time I reached the "H" section of the New Releases. Knowing full well I would end up watching two and paying exorbitant late fees on the other two (and they still would go unwatched), I went for the double feature and walked away with Stephen Gyllenhaal's Homegrown and Robert Altman's The Gingerbread Man.

Superficially they would seem to have little in common. One is a thriller-comedy about pot growers, the other is an action-thriller about a misguided lawyer. (Hmm, come to think of it, there might be some similar thematic elements there...) However, on closer inspection, the two films have quite a lot in common. Both have powerhouse casts, strong writers, unusual storylines that (coupled with lousy marketing) failed to connect with audiences--and consequently, left theaters quickly, assuming they even played in any markets besides L.A., New York, and Seattle.

Homegrown has been described by co-screenwriter Nicholas Kazan as a modern-day Treasure of the Sierra Madre. I'm not sure the comparison is entirely apt, but there are similarities. Kazan is a very good screenwriter, with such strong films as Reversal of Fortune, Fallen, and the overlooked Dream Lover (which he also directed) to his credit. Working with director Stephen Gyllenhaal (who co-conceived the story with Jonah Raskin), Kazan has crafted a story about three dim-bulb hired hands who work on a marijuana farm and watch their wealthy employer, Malcolm Stockman (John Lithgow), get killed before their eyes.

Their first instinct is to run. Later they realize there's some money to be made with the considerable crop and no one to stop them, so they go into business for themselves. Jack (Billy Bob Thornton) is the oldest and calmest of the group, and soon poses as Malcolm in business dealings. Carter (Hank Azaria) is described as having a hell of a green thumb, but he's more impetuous than Jack and not a hell of a lot smarter. Heading up the rear is Harlan (Ryan Phillippe), who is only twenty and lives up to that old saying, "Young, dumb, and full of cum." Their unwitting aide (who believes Malcolm is still alive and in Hawaii) is Lucy (Kelly Lynch), who has long had strong feelings for Carter but they are now more or less split up, and she finds herself feeling something for studly young Harlan, especially when he chops wood with his shirt off.

The trio of growers-turned-criminal entrepeneurs have a lot to learn and the film has some fun with scenes in which Carter tries to figure out how he's supposed to bribe a sheriff's deputy (Judge Reinhold, whom I haven't seen in a film in about ten years). Gradually, as mobsters, hitmen, and the police close in, tensions build to the point of combustion.

A lot of Homegrown is pretty predictable, especially the breakdown of trust among the three "partners." But the story is entertaining, well told, and carried aloft by strong performances. Thornton and Azaria are particularly solid, as always, and Phillippe demonstrates an ability to actually play a character whereas his work in films like I Know What You Did Last Summer suggested he could only preen and pose. I liked the interactions of the characters and the way the plot twisted and turned right up to the climax, which is beautifully executed as a tragicomedy of errors.

I guess I was disappointed with the abrupt denoument and the climax seemed a tad too cheery, as though things should have ended on a darker note. That may just be a conditioned expectation from similar amateurs-try-the-criminal-life thrillers like Shallow Grave. I also wished director Gyllenhaal (Losing Isaiah) had ratcheted the tension a little more; some scenes run on too long and certain confrontations seem to lack the suspense that really ought to be shooting through the roof.

But Homegrown is entertaining, especially when it focuses on the central trio's efforts to achieve their late employer's status. Kazan is a crackerjack writer capable of concocting some great lines and terrific character touches, and this script is embellished with them. There is a rainy grave-digging scene, for instance, that could equal any of the hard-hitting moments in Shallow Grave if only Gyllenhaal had found a way to shoot it tighter and more suspensefully. As it is, the scene (and many others) are effective without truly knocking us out as they ought to have.

So relatively good (if not terribly smart) people do bad things and kind of pay for it, but also kind of get away with it in the end. Not so in The Gingerbread Man. In this case, the hero is a defense attorney who has not done good things and during the course of the film does several good things (or things he thinks are good) and ends up paying for it and not really getting away with anything much at all.

His name is Rick Magruder and he's played by British thespian Kenneth Branagh with a flawless Southern accent and an unwavering sense of duty and loyalty. Magruder is constantly moving, taking action, making things happen. He does not like to sit still. He is also a hell of an attorney. As the film opens he has just won a case against the local police in Savannah, Georgia, by "proving" that a cop unreasonably shot his client, a blatant crook. Magruder is thrown a celebration by his firm and he makes several advances toward fellow attorney Lois Harlan (Darryl Hannah), but she knows his routine too well and doesn't take. When everyone else has gone home, Magruder finds himself along, standing still, and that doesn't suit him at all.

Then one of the waitresses who catered the party, Mallory Doss (Embeth Davitz), discovers her car has been stolen. Magruder gives her a ride home, an act that seems selfless--but one should always question an attorney's true motives. They arrive at her house to find her car parked there, the front door open, and her keys sitting on top of the TV set. Mallory believes her father might have done this; she says he's insane and has tried to get her for years. Mallory and Magruder end up sleeping together.

When Mallory's cat is strung up in her house the next day, Magruder decides to stop this maniac once and for all. He has the police round the guy up. His name is Dixon Doss (Robert Duvall) and he lives in a large, dilapidated home on several thousand acres of land he owns, along with numerous bums who are referred to as his "clan." Dixon is institutionalized after a very short hearing during which it becomes clear he is violent and crazy. Then his clan shows up and breaks him out of the hospital. Magruder worries that Dixon will come after Mallory--and it appears he's right.

Also included in the mix are Robert Downey, Jr. as Clyde, a shifty private detective who works for Magruder, Tom Berenger as Mallory's disgruntled ex-husband who was once hospitalized by Dixon, and Famke Janssen as Magruder's ex-wife, a lush who is dating her divorce lawyer and argues every time Magruder comes to visit the kids.

The Gingerbread Man is based on a story by John Grisham, who wrote it as a spec script that failed to sell in Hollywood even after his novels became best-sellers and hit movies. Word has it Grisham's screenplay was a by-the-numbers thriller and no one wanted to touch it. Enter Robert Altman, apparently wanting to take a crack at his first Hollywood thriller. Altman signed on to direct and then rewrote Grisham's script so thoroughly (under his standard screenwriting pseudonym "Al Hayes") that "Hayes" receives sole screenplay credit.

The result is intriguing. We have the basic skeleton of a standard movie thriller, but the body itself is different, somewhat misshappen. For a long time we aren't sure exactly what sort of movie The Gingerbread Man is: a character study, a thriller about a stalker on the loose, or a film noir story in which the hero turns out to be a total sucker in the end. As it happens, the film turns out to be all three crunched together.

The result is sometimes uneven but never boring. Duvall is very convincing as the maniacal Dixon, who becomes a force of nature unto himself after only a handful of scenes. Altman does a terrific job of keeping us in suspense, using many wide and medium shots filmed from an adjoining room to the one in which the central action takes place, thus keeping us off our guard and always on the lookout for something to happen. The first scene in Mallory's house, for instance, when Mallory uses the bathroom and Altman holds the take in a single, medium-wide shot, following Magruder around the house (in which there may possibly be an intruder hiding), seeing him mostly through strings of beads hung in the bedroom doorway, is masterfully tense in a way that would have made Hitchcock proud. Much more so than Brian DePalma, who mostly mimicks Hitch's techniques while playing with his angles and set-ups for the sake of looking cool, Altman understands and utilizes camera set-ups and oblique angles for creating great tension and suspense. He also adds an oncoming hurricane as a sort of through-line that builds to the climax.

I was reminded at several junctures of the remake of Cape Fear, in which Martin Scorsese turned a "standard" thriller into one of the best such films to emerge from Hollywood. Scorsese mercilessly played with audience expectations and genre commandments until one could not guess where he was headed next--and in the process he pushed the genre archetypes to their very extremes, right up to the apocalyptic ending.

Similarly, in The Gingerbread Man, Altman seems to want to play with the genre and audience alike. Several scenes build unpredictably and the dialogue is off-puttingly realistic, much of it sounding improvised. (It may well have been; Altman is a big fan of improvisation, although I would imagine he'd back off on it after Ready To Wear.) Ironically, when Altman uses a familiar device toward the middle of the film (a truck blocking a character's view) we realize how successfully he has undermined our expectations; we absolutely don't expect to see what we know will happen--and it is then, in fact, a surprise to find out we were right all along.

The Gingerbread Man is no Cape Fear, however. Altman doesn't push the envelope remotely as far as Scorsese, and by putting so many similar elements (a brutal psychopath, an apocalyptic storm, a seriously flawed protagonist--and both were defense attorneys) into his film he invites a comparison that is not in his favor. But almost all of the film works on its own terms, even after what we think is the climax turns out to be just the catalyst for the third act.

It is in the climax that Altman's story falls apart. Characters react unconvincingly, holes in the twist-a-plot are never adequately explained, and the final scene is too abrupt to be satisfying. But the way Altman runs Magruder through a gamut and refuses to give him an easy, happy ending is more than commendable.

The cast is more than impressive, but Branagh stays head-and-shoulders above the rest. In an era when many top-billed stars seem to be reprising the same personas from one role to the next, Branagh seems as far removed from Hamlet or even his American detective in Dead Again as Duvall is from his preacher in The Apostle. In other words, Branagh is riveting in every scene and much of the rising tension comes from watching him take steps to squirm out of the bind in which he's gotten himself, only to have squeezed himself in deeper.

Both Homegrown and The Gingerbread Man are solid entertainments, well made and effective overall, with only a handful of flaws that fail to mar the final product. It is sadly telling that both were unfairly overlooked by moviegoers last spring. Luckily, while those same moviegoers crawl out of Blade and The Avengers (hopefully with an overpowering sense of self-loathing), the rest of us have a perfect chance to catch up on some real missed opportunities.

Text by Chris Bolton

Jack (Billy Bob Thornton), Carter (Hank Azaria), and Harlan (Ryan Phillippe) are journeymen practitioners of their craft in a world that just doesn't appreciate fine craftsmanship anymore-except, that is, the world they happen to live in, the insular community of rural, psychedelic Northern California, where the number one cash crop is illegal and everybody's main source of income seems to be connected to the harvest.

The craft these craftsmen happen to be plying is pot farming. And they are seasoned experts at it, with Jack in the role of plantation overseer, making sure to get maximum yield and efficient dispersal of the foliage; Carter as the team's horticultural genius, adept at the minutest detail of plant acculturation and well-versed in the science of hydroponics; and Harlan as a willing conscript to the job of gathering, happily pitching in to sample the product to maintain quality control.

The three inept but lovable farmers go about their merry work until the day they witness the murder of their boss, plantation owner and marketing expert Malcolm (John Lithgow), by a mysterious assailant. After a moment of panic, the naive trio decides to take over the business themselves. Their lazy days on the dope farm, however, have ill prepared them for the high-stakes game of finding buyers for millions of dollars of contraband. As they plunge into a shadowy new world of duplicity, double-dealing and danger, they soon find that they have gotten in way, way over their heads. But driven on by increasing greed and paranoia, they discover that it's too late to back out.

Gyllenhaal and Clark went about making their little film. They set up production offices and started casting for the main roles. At first, they weren't getting any takers for the main role of Jack. But then Billy Bob Thornton came in, saying he loved the script and wanted to play the part.

In fact, though Gyllenhaal had seen and been impressed by Thornton's memorable performance as a drug-dealing killer in One False Move, which Thornton co-wrote, he did not have a clue that this was the same man who would go on to win an Oscar® in 1997 for Best Adapted Screenplay for Sling Blade. "I didn't know who the hell he was!" says Gyllenhaal. "I mean, no one did. Billy Bob wasn't 'Billy Bob'-he was nobody. I'd loved One False Move, but when he came in to see me, I didn't put it all together. He's the first guy who came in who said he loved the script. And I looked at him and went, he loved the script? There must be something wrong with him.

"He didn't want to read for the part. He goes on and on, '... and I really haven't done that much but I just did this little film that I wrote and produced, and starred in it.' And I went, oh, Christ, these are the kind of people we're getting. They can't even get themselves cast in a movie.

"So he invites us to this screening of the movie he made. So I go down to see the screening, but I had a meeting scheduled in the middle of the screening, and I said to Jason, 'You know, I'll leave after a half hour.' So the guy is actually there. That's what a jerk I thought he was-he goes to his own screening! I figure I'll stay for a while, then leave. He sits down right next to me. And this movie starts, and it's Sling Blade.

"And I was blown away. At the end of the movie I was weeping, laughing, everything, and I jumped up and wrapped my arms around him, which is not what you do with an Arkansas hillbilly. I said, 'I love this movie! You want the role?' He said, 'I want the role.' "

From there, the momentum started growing for the filmmakers, and the other roles began to be cast. Kelly Lynch came on because of Billy Bob. "We're both repped by the same agent," says Lynch. "I was one of the first ones to see Sling Blade, back when it was a half-hour short. I read the script [for Homegrown] and I thought it was hilarious, but not in an obvious way. An unusual thing about the movie is that the tone of it is so unique. It's not a pot movie; it's not really a comedy; it's not really side-splitting funny. I don't know what you'd compare it to."

Lynch was immediately taken with her role as Lucy, the small-time pot packager and distributor who is the next stop for the trio of ne'er-do-wells once they harvest their load of plants. "I can really relate to this woman. She is about taking care of herself-she has a regular life and a regular job, except that it has to do with the storage, distribution and inventory of contraband. That's the kind of woman I can relate to. Usually, the parts I see in films are so vulnerable. They're so wambly; they're like jelly legs and 'please help me.' I don't know many women who can relate to that. This woman is incredibly strong."

As Lucy, Lynch walks a fine line as Carter (Hank Azaria)'s sometime girlfriend and the object of Harlan (Ryan Phillippe)'s schoolboy crush. On the other hand, she's also a voice of reason and proves a big help to the boys with their newfound harvest.

Playing important cameo roles are three-time Emmy Award winner John Lithgow as Malcolm, an eccentric trust fund baby who gets off on growing millions of dollars worth of marijuana; Jamie Lee Curtis as Sierra Kahan, the spirited leader of the marijuana community; Jon Tenney as a murderous helicopter pilot; Judge Reinhold as a crooked cop; and rocker Jon Bon Jovi, who has gained substantial acclaim for recent acting performances, as the ultra-smooth drug dealer Danny.

Jamie Lee Curtis was another Homegrown actor who had seen Sling Blade in a screening well before it created a buzz for Billy Bob Thornton. But it was her relationship with director Gyllenhaal that got her onto the set. "Stephen Gyllenhaal is one of my best friends, and I've always goaded him that he's never hired me," says Curtis with a laugh. "We've always wanted to work together but nothing has come up in all this time that he thought would be good for me to do except for this little part in this movie. He asked me if I would come out one night and do a scene with Billy Bob, and I said sure. I'd never met Billy Bob except for five minutes before I walked on that set. And it was just a really interesting little moment in my life with him. I enjoyed it very much.

"What was interesting was that it really materialized in the work, which was fun. On paper it was fine but it wasn't remarkable. What was fun was that it was clear that Billy Bob and I liked working together and we wanted to make it a little more-I don't know-sinister, perhaps, than it might have originally been. I think that Stephen likes to play it very loose. He doesn't force things. He likes it to be very free, and ultimately what he wants -which is what most film directors want-is for it to really just happen when it's happening. Stephen is a very natural director. He's very real. He just wants you to bring to it what you feel as an actor. There was no preparation for the scene, no rehearsing."

Curtis and Thornton took advantage of this supportive atmosphere on the set to create a scene that revealed more chemistry between the actors than what was implied between their characters in the written script. "What was nice about the experience is that, ultimately, what ended up on screen certainly was lifted off the page a little bit. It was elevated simply by the work between me and Billy."

The back story that the two created, with Gyllenhaal's blessing, was that, says Curtis, "these people were lovers once, and that they still had a very strong connection to each other, yet they were thrust into this other relationship of one-my character, Sierra Kahan-being sort of the head of this group of people and this other guy being a bit of a follower. And it just charged the scene and gave it an energy that was very exciting to be a part of."

And how does Curtis see herself with respect to the role she portrays in Homegrown, the earth-mother leader of a band of potheads? "Not a problem," she maintains. "I have very little experience with that culture, but certainly from their standpoint it's a loving community. I can relate to a loving community and a loving parent despite the fact that it's an illegal drug-referenced community."

Jon Bon Jovi, who plays a drug dealer in Homegrown, takes the attitude that it's "just a movie-" a comedy at that-when asked about how his fans might react to his role. Says Bon Jovi, "The big question that came up to me when people hear about this movie is they say, 'What about your morals and what about your being a role model?' I say, 'Look, man, it's a spoof. It's not because I'm a dope dealer in a movie that I'm a dope dealer and I want kids to be dope dealers. This is a bit of a comedy at the end of the day, so the Moral Majority has got to lighten up a bit. It's not like Natural Born Killers where people are gonna watch it and say they went out on a killing rampage because they were affected by the movie. If they do anything that's inspired by this movie, they might get the munchies and order pizza."

Bon Jovi does an excellent turn in Homegrown, lending the film an air of authenticity and danger. He, too, was an early fan of Sling Blade, and he, too, joined the cast for the opportunity to work with Stephen Gyllenhaal. "Steve Gyllenhaal did a TV movie starring Heather Locklear, and Heather is married to Richie Sambora, my guitar player, and so when it came on TV that night we all sat around and watched it. With my wanting to be an actor, she said, 'This is a director you should work with. He got more out of me in this TV movie than anything I had ever done.'

"So I was intrigued. And I said, 'You won't believe this, but I just got sent a script that he's doing.' And she said, 'You should meet with him.' Which I did. The key for my acting is to find great directors to work with, and I enjoyed his company immensely."

The other impetus for Bon Jovi to join the cast was the buzz around Billy Bob Thornton. "Seeing Sling Blade prior to it coming out, I was very intrigued by Billy Bob and what he was capable of, so those two elements were worth walking across country to be part of," says the New Jersey-based rocker.

Curtis, Lynch, Hank Azaria (best known for his portrayal of the hot pants-wearing Guatemalan houseboy in The Birdcage), John Lithgow, and Judge Reinhold are all first-class actors who were drawn to this modest production by their relationship with director Gyllenhaal. The assembled talent, says producer Clark, made it possible for the film to get financing. "Primarily it was Stephen's relationships that brought forth cameos from a lot of friends of his, in a way that helped to diminish whatever risk there is in investing in an independent picture. Because with a well-known cast, the picture is more marketable. We were very lucky. We feel that we made a great movie against the 'Hollywood system,' or without kind of having to participate in the system. And at the end of the day we have a distributor-TriStar-who we are very proud of."

The film was shot in and around Los Angeles and Santa Cruz. In Santa Cruz, a state park in the town of Aptos was used for the plantation where the pot crop was grown. It was there that someone from town absconded with five fake silk pot plants, apparently mistaking them for the real thing. The local police and state troopers were called in, and eventually the guilty person turned himself in. "I just hope he didn't try to smoke the plants," says Thornton. "You can get real sick from smoking silk."

"The difficulty in mounting a movie that involves America's number one cash crop is that that cash crop is not legal," says producer Clark. "So in filming sequences, to create the most naturalistic of environments requires assistance, and we received assistance from both sides of the law. What's interesting is that when we dealt with the police-and in the state of California they have this association of marijuana cops, marijuana task forces-they cooperated in making available to us recent crop harvest and getting us onto fields and such. But it was interesting because that was a political animal, and at certain times the politics would change, and we'd be shut out.

"And then, on the other side of the law, dealing with people whose business it is to farm, it was much more cagey. Three guys would have to show up in Santa Barbara with a camera and a van, and they'd be driven to a location where they'd have to wait, and then a guy'd show up and it was like this endless stream of kind of clandestine meetings that would yield typically zero, and you could see the value of the bureaucracy immediately. We'd show up with a camera and there'd be nothing to shoot. You'd be in some guy's backyard with two potted plants by the end of the day."

Making Homegrown, says Clark, was "super-hard. It rained the entire time. One set turned into a lake-it was flooded out completely. The set was destroyed. We had to take out an insurance claim on it. We had to wait for six days till the set dried out. But we were blessed. It was really a blessed experience, one of the best experiences I've ever had on a film."

But even with the physical hardships of filming during rainy season, the cast and crew had a blast. To hear Kelly Lynch tell it, the comedy continued off-camera: "When I think back about the film, I think of it in terms of laughing. Every day, laughing. And just how great everybody was, from Jon Bon Jovi to Jamie Lee, people who came in. A typical day on the set was like, 'who can make the others laugh the hardest,' which involved anything from being in character to looking at stuff on the set, or someone doing something that was unexpected. Or trying to be really gross.

"John Lithgow-we could hardly get through that scene where they think he's dead, we were laughing so hard. Lithgow is so great. It was like Drugstore Cowboy, where Matt Dillon made me laugh so hard that I had to remain in character in that strong, no-nonsense mode of my character, but me, Kelly, it was all I could do to not be roaring with laughter. It was the same thing with my co-stars on Homegrown-just three adorable guys, funny and smart. It has been a great experience, the opportunity to work with these guys. They are so giving. So it kept me on my toes, and it was, like, an ideal experience."

J ON BON JOVI (Danny), leader of the immensely successful rock band Bon Jovi, gained critical acclaim for his acting debut in Moonlight and Valentino starring Whoopi Goldberg, Elizabeth Perkins, Kathleen Turner, and Gwyneth Paltrow. For this impressive debut, Jon was selected by the Motion Picture Club for the prestigious Premiere Performance Award, an honor which recognizes an outstanding debut performance in a film.

He recently played the title role in The Leading Man, a humorous tale of passion set against the backstage intrigue of the London theatre scene, co-starring Anna Galiena and Thandie Newton.

Jon wrote and performed the soundtrack for Young Guns II, which earned him the Golden Globe Award, the American Music Award and both Grammy and Oscar® nominations in 1991.

Throughout their extraordinary 12-year career, Bon Jovi has sold over 75 million albums. Jon continues to write and perform music, playing to sold-out audiences around the world. His most recent Bon Jovi album is Destination Anywhere.

In addition to appearing in a short film that accompanies Destination Anywhere, Jon will soon be seen in Little City. He has also been cast in Long Time, Nothing New, the forthcoming film by director Ed Burns (She's The One, The Brothers McMullen).

Dedicating his time and talents to a number of charitable organizations, Jon has provided ongoing support to the American Red Cross and the Special Olympics. Over the last six years, Bon Jovi has given Christmas benefit concerts to aid local community charities. An avid supporter of environmental causes, Jon participated in 1995's Rainforest Benefit Concert alongside Elton John, Jessye Norman, Bruce Springsteen, Sting, and James Taylor.