"Auto Focus" tells the tale of Bob Crane, star of the 1960s sitcom "Hogan's Heroes," who spirals downward from stardom to dinner theater to dead. The only slightly refreshing detail of this otherwise stale film is that Crane's demon wasn't the "same-old, same-old" booze or heroin addiction, rather his poison was sex.
Crane starts out as a 1950s stereotype: a hard-working family man -- who doesn't drink or smoke -- married to his high school sweetheart (Rita Wilson) and the father of three children. But once he is cast as Hogan, Crane, who already had a secret stash of girlie magazines and a penchant for photography, morphs into a sex-crazed strip clubber who videotapes his romps only to whack-off to them later.
John Carpenter (William Dafoe) is partially to blame for Crane's unfortunate transformation. Carpy (not surprisingly sounds like "creepy" and "crappy") is a video technician who meets Crane on the set of "Hogan's" and originally introduces him to the joys of videotaped sex.
Although Crane destroys two marriages, first with Wilson and later with a Hogan's co-star (Maria Bello), his relationship with Carpy grows more and more intense until the two eventually find themselves washed-out perverts who are unable to find women to partake in their motel-set sex flicks.
Paul Schrader, the director of "American Gigolo" and screenwriter of "Taxi Driver" and "The Last Temptation of Christ," does a truly unremarkable job here. Most of the scenes are visually uninteresting, and at least one of his attempts to jazz things up -- Crane recites a poorly written ode to boobs -- fails miserably.
And although Schrader's exploration of a man struggling with sexual identity in the midst of the pre-AIDS sexual revolution is mildly interesting, other films, like Ang Lee's "Ice Storm," did this better.
The best aspect of this film is in the acting. Kinnear makes us actually feel sorry for an obsessive pervert, but the problem with Kinnear is that he just isn't handsome enough for the role. We are told, repeatedly, that Crane's success had much to do with his good looks, but Kinnear, although a good actor, really isn't much of a looker.
In the end, despite all the naked bells and whistles, this film simply isn't compelling, rather mediocre at best.
"Auto Focus" opens Fri., Nov. 1 at Landmark's Oriental Theatre.
Molly Snyder started writing and publishing her work at the age 10, when her community newspaper printed her poem, "The Unicorn.” Since then, she's expanded beyond the subject of mythical creatures and written in many different mediums but, nearest and dearest to her heart, thousands of articles for OnMilwaukee.
Molly is a regular contributor to FOX6 News and numerous radio stations as well as the co-host of "Dandelions: A Podcast For Women.” She's received five Milwaukee Press Club Awards, served as the Pfister Narrator and is the Wisconsin State Fair’s Celebrity Cream Puff Eating Champion of 2019.
