"You know," itinerate preacher Miles Evans (Morgan Freeman) tells Manuel Jordan
(Billy Bob Thornton), a man possessed by the memories of the kid he killed
twenty-three years ago during a robbery. "You could get lucky. God could
decide to grade you on the curve." A stoic man seeking the redemption that he
never expects to obtain, Manual finds little solace in Miles's or anyone else's
words. Now out on the parole that he didn't think he deserved, Manuel suffers
the pains of his sins, morning, noon and night.
LEVITY, written and directed by Ed Solomon, certainly deserves extra points for
style and consistency of tone. Always moving as slowly as molasses, the
well-acted movie creates intriguing characters yet never comes up with enough
material to sustain a full-length motion picture. Although it could have been a
dynamite short, an hour and forty minutes of this is rather like going to church
and having to sit through one extremely long, record-setting sermon on guilt and
forgiveness. (Holly Hunter plays the sister of the murder victim, and Kirsten
Dunst plays a young wastrel.)
Actually I might be able to forgive the movie's length, but I have no sympathy
for its cheap shot of an ending.
LEVITY runs 1:40. It is rated R for "language" and would be acceptable for
teenagers.
Copyright © 2003 Steve Rhodes
out of 4
