Tepid `Friends And Lovers' Makes Solitude Look Good

Movie review X 1/2 "Friends and Lovers," with Stephen Baldwin, Robert Downey Jr., Danny Nucci, Alison Eastwood, George Newbern, Leon, Ann Magnuson. Written and directed by George Haas. 102 minutes. City Center. No rating; includes nudity, mature subject matter.

An interesting cast strikes out in less-than-interesting ways in "Friends and Lovers," a tepid comedy about a group of Los Angeles friends who spend Christmas skiing and looking for partners in Park City.

It begins when Ian (George Newbern) gets a call from his estranged father (David Rasche), who invites him and friends away for the weekend. Ian's pal, Jon (Stephen Baldwin) jumps at the chance, and the rest of the gang shows up, too: sensible Lisa (Alison Eastwood), shy gay kid David (Danny Nucci), dissatisfied Carla (Claudia Schiffer), pregnant Jane (Suzanne Cryer) and Jane's well-endowed brother, Keaton (Neill Barry).

Only Ian is missing, which makes for an embarrassing evening during which Dad tells them they're more than welcome - as he accidentally blows up the microwave. The situation leads to a series of mirthless running gags about Dad's ineptitude in the kitchen, the side effects of pregnancy (including flatulence), and a theory that boyfriends with "pointy heads" are losers.

There's also a pillow fight, a chess game and a nude Jacuzzi party that never really happens. As soon as Keaton drops his pants, the women scatter, running off to their bedroom to discuss male genitalia.

In an episode that would not pass muster on the lowliest television sitcom, Dad has a heart-to-heart with someone he thinks is his son, only to discover he's been spilling his guts to Jon. Eventually the real Ian does show up, and the whole dreary confession of paternal guilt is repeated.

The most peculiar sequence concerns David, who describes himself as "technically a virgin, spiritually a whore." His friends push him to pick up a chess-loving snowboarder (Leon) who appears straight. Somehow David seduces him, largely by looking soulfully into his eyes while playing chess on Christmas Eve.

The whole thing is so slipshod it suggests that "Friends and Lovers" might have been shot during a lull in Park City's Sundance Film Festival, where hot young actors and filmmakers gather on the slopes. It's a first-time feature-length effort from writer-director George Haas, a New York filmmaker whose shorts include "Romance" and "Doris and Inez Speak the Truth."

But the movie betrays no special visual style, and the script's attempts at repartee are pretty appalling. For instance: "If I have sex with a pregnant woman, is it child abuse?" You really don't want to know Haas' answer to that one.

Fortunately, Robert Downey Jr. turns up as "Hans," a ski instructor and "spirit guide" who can't stop showing off his phony Bavarian accent. He gives "private lessons," steals Carla, Jon's girlfriend, and eventually confesses to being from New Jersey. It comes as no surprise, in the press kit, that Downey "preferred doing a German accent instead of the original Dutch, and wanted to be even wilder than written."

Downey does for this movie what Marlon Brando did for "The Island of Dr. Moreau": He's so outrageous, he's having such fun with this trash, that you forgive him for being an unrepentant ham.