(rated R, 107 mins.) Right from the get-go with its snappy opening of visually pleasing supper-club credits shaken with martinis, the mood of Los Angeles 1964, draws in the viewer. Bob Crane (Greg Kinnear) is handsome and charming, a likeable Disc Jockey who takes a risk on a script Bing Crosby will produce – a POW comedy with a ‘laugh track’. His wife (Rita Wilson) thinks a Holocaust comedy is crazy until a round table follows with rehearsals of Werner Klemperer (Kurt Fuller), John Banner (Lyle Kanouse), Richard Dawson (Michael Rodgers) and “Hogan’s Heroes” is born. Capitalizing on his fame, Crane teams up with John Carpenter (Willem Dafoe), a high fidelity expert installing units on the studio lot. Before long Carpenter transforms the Catholic-church-going-father-of-three-Crane into a Hugh Hefner type that makes Charlie Sheen look like an amateur. Their motto “A day without sex is a day wasted.” With the wildness comes the slow demise of Crane despite warnings from his agents (Ron Leibman) and his soon to be new wife “Hilda” (Maria Bello) who understands him and “knows about all the women.” “Auto Focus” is a fascinating chronicle of American male sexual identity in the sixties and seventies. From Paul Schrader, acclaimed director of “American Gigolo” and “Affliction” and the screenwriter of “Taxi Driver” and “Raging Bull”, again he makes a film that parallels obsession and addiction through escalating misconduct, intensity, style and wit. Like “Permanent Midnight” or last year’s “Blow” the movie begins on a high and spirals to Crane’s demise, ending with his murder in a Scottsdale Arizona hotel room in 1978. Kinnear takes a break from his usual comedy for a dark role that sky-rockets him to the top of being taken seriously as an actor. Don’t’ be surprised come Oscar buzz time. However, one of the producers within the movie (Bruce Solomon) tells Crane’s character: “you’re the hero of the show Bob. It’s named after you. Heroes don’t try to be heroes. They simply are.” Strange; since it’s hard to find sympathy for a guy who abused all he had going for him in the first place. Hero was certainly not a word in his vocabulary.
