Grade: B

Verdict: Sex, death and the city.

Details: Starring Dan Futterman and Alan Cumming. Directed by Jon Shear. Rated R for sex, violence and profanity. One hour, 43 minutes.

Rate it: Write your own review

Review: Hey, didja hear the one about the little old lady who microwaved her poodle by mistake? How 'bout the one where the guy has hot sex with an attractive stranger and wakes up minus a kidney? Or the one where the guy's lover is murdered and he manages to track down the killer and ...? Well, I'm not going to tell you that one because the acclaimed new indie film "Urbania" tells it better.

Dan Futterman (Robin Williams' straight-arrow son in "The Birdcage," now a regular on "Judging Amy") plays Charlie, a resident of the West Village who's clearly tormented by something - someone? - missing in his life. Then, after locking eyes with a leather-clad hunk (Samuel Ball), he becomes obsessed with him.

While waiting for the hunk to reappear, Charlie has various meaningful encounters. With a preening bisexual soap star (Gabriel Olds); with an old pal (Alan Cumming) dying of AIDS who tries to joke away his disease ("Grunge, heroin chic and dying are over ; I so hate being behind the curve"); with an amiable, even kindly barkeep (Josh Hamilton); with a paranoid homeless man (Lothaire Bluteau); with the clueless jock (William Sage) who lives in the apartment above him.

Meanwhile, his past intrudes upon his present via cryptic flashbacks to a now-absent boyfriend (Matt Keeslar).

Shot on the cheap in less than three weeks, "Urbania" looks surprisingly good. Actor-turned-director Jon Shear is adept with both his actors and his camera. His stylish eye - recorded on Super 8, then blown up digitally to 35mm - plunges us into a nocturnal, sometimes nightmarish world of after-hours cruising while his able cast, especially Futterman and Cumming, bring a searing credibility to their roles.

The trouble arises from the script, which was adapted from a stage play called "Urban Folk Tales." Quite simply, the movie's build-up far exceeds its pay-off which becomes an extended pas de deux between Futterman and Ball. In a way, that's a backhanded compliment - the movie's first three quarters are just too promising for its stagey denoument.

Still,when it's working, "Urbania" works awfully well. Its late-night evocation of the city as a place where memory, fantasy and chance merge is as harrowing and liberating as free-fall. Especially as we slowly realize that Futterman is psyching himself up for an cathartic act.

Plus anyone who has ever suffered a loss will feel a twinge of recognition when, near the end, the homeless man, referring to Daylight Savings Time, asks Futterman, "Did you remember to set your clock back?"

If only he could. If only any of us could.

— Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Cox News Service