Beat Takeshi and Yusuke Sekiguchi in "Kikujiro."

MOVIE INFORMATION

With 10 as a must-see, we give this film a: Stars: Beat Takeshi and Yusuke Sekiguchi Director: Takeshi Kitano Rated: PG-13, with a threatening incident Length: 116 minutes

ROCHESTERCRITIQUE

Having seen this film, how would you rate it? 10 5 9 4 8 3 7 2 6 1

By Mike Clark
Gannett News Service

(July 28, 2000) -- Pairing a lonely child with a crusty adult is about as tried and true as movies get, yet there's a tacit assumption that any filmmaker dusting off this formula will load it up with equally tried-and-true condiments.

You know, tiny tangibles such as adequate pacing, pathos and laughs, or at least engaging characters - none of which the Japanese import Kikujiro can claim, except for a snicker or two.

Acting under the name Beat Takeshi, cult action filmmaker Takeshi Kitano (Fireworks ) sullies his reputation by co-starring in this painfully protracted 122-minute road film about a brashly indolent lowlife whose name is the same as the movie's.

Because he has little else to do, Kikujiro ends up chaperoning an unsmiling lump of an 8-year-old (Yusuke Sekiguchi ) who decides to search for his long-gone mother in another city.

With incessant swagger and attitude that suggests a Japanese version of American character actor Joseph Bologna, Kikujiro is supposedly taking the youngster to the beach.

Cut to the track (bicycle racing, not horses), where the boy's money is being recklessly blown - and not by the boy. Though the last thing this kind of movie needs is sentimentality, it's problematic that the senior half of this bummer twosome remains a lout for the duration.

Kikujiro's Bobby Knight temper is coupled with a penchant for car vandalism (windshield smashing and punctured tires are his two apparent specialties).

By the time the movie tries to turn fanciful by introducing a pair of unlikely bikers, it's too late, even if these touchy-feely cyclists are something to see.

From Charlie Chaplin and Jackie Coogan in 1921's The Kid to Fernanda Montenegro and Vinicius de Oliveira in Central Station just two years ago, it's tough to think of another child-adult pairing in a long screen tradition with so little emotional kick.

Even moviegoers who love road movies (and count me in) may need a rest stop from film-induced fatigue.