Auto Focus (2002)

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

I don't know what Greg Kinnear has been up to lately, but as far as major rolls in movies go, he isn't doing enough.I'll admit I'm biased. I remember my girlfriend and myself laughing hysterically at Kinnear's commentaries when he hosted the old cable show 'Talk Soup', which featured highlights of the days' more outrageous talk show guests back in the late eighties. Priceless stuff.Like most people, I visibly cringe at the real Bob Crane's personal life as the details slowly began to leak into the public consciousness years after he was brutally murdered. We follow Bob as he makes the quantum leap from radio to TV early in the story as his agent lands him the lead role in risky new comedy set in a P.O.W. camp in World War 2 Germany. "Hogan's Heroes" turns out to be an overnight hit, and Bob is quickly seduced into a double life.One has to remember it was the mid-sixties. The sexual revolution was accelerating rapidly, and many already full grown adults were drawn into this new and forbidden territory, and often with disastrous results at the expense of spouses and children as well as careers. Bob's experience was no exception. By day, Bob is a loving husband and father (well, sort of). By night, Bob soon becomes unrecognizable as he quickly falls victim to all the dark sides that Hollywood has to offer, and then some.A big part of the problem is Bob's new best buddy, John Carpenter (Willem Dafoe) who he meets on the set of Hogan's Heroes. John works as a salesman and representative for Sony, and is busy introducing the emerging technology of portable analog video recording systems, or video tape recorders. John is a likable enough guy, but he has a sleazy streak a mile wide.John already has Bob hob-nobbing at strip clubs after hours soon after they meet, but when John introduces Bob to the world of video tape, he is quickly filled with all kinds of dirty fun ideas.In the beginning as Bob descends into his personal cesspool, he stops himself here and there completely stupefied and shocked at his own tawdry decisions. But with John's help, he gets over it. Fast. Bob begins to swirl the great cosmic toilet bowl of depravity to the bitter end. After Hogan's Heroes is canceled, Bob, armed with his drunken arrogance, proceeds to ruin every personal and professional relationship he has. He tears through yet another marriage, loses all his children from both, alienates his agent and colleagues, and burns away money. All he has left is more booze, more sex, and John.After Bob and John begin to develop unavoidable contempt for one another, the end for Bob is right around the corner. Aside from an ending that I found too abrupt, Director Paul Schrader does an excellent job creating the tension and drama throughout the story as palpable and well presented. The supporting cast recreating the Hogan's Heroes sequences left a little to be desired, but was adequate. The exception was actor Kurt Fuller's reprising the late Werner Klemperer's role of Colonel Klink who bags it effortlessly.There is also a bit part in the movie acted by no less than Bob Crane Jr. See if you can spot it.

Paul Schrader's films often reflect his Calvinist upbringing. This one, "Auto Focus", plays like a sequel to his earlier feature, "Comfort of Strangers". And so where "Comfort" was about sexual repression and stifled emotions, "Auto Focus" offers the opposite.The plot? Greg Kinnear plays Bob Crane, an affable TV star who finds his squeaky-clean suburban life degenerating into a morass of sexual addictions. Crane visits strip-clubs, has orgies with multiple men and women, begins to record his sex sessions, has penis enlargement surgery and eventually sadomasochistic sex. Crane, in short, auto focuses on kinkiness. Eventually he begins hoarding and storing these prized moments in vast sex libraries, the poor guy consumed by his indulgences.Many of Schrader's scripts ("Raging Bull", "The Last Temptation of Christ", "Hardcore", "Dominion" etc) feature a battle between fleshy desires and an almost spiritual ideal. This has led to many accusing Schrader of being puritanical, though his films always paint the body as being inescapable, be it his protagonist's lusts in "Cat People" or Christ turning away from God and toward the phallus in "Last Temptation". The way Schrader's heroes find themselves caught between desire and the guilt induced by socially constructed values itself echoes the first point in the Calvinist doctrine of grace. This is the belief that man exists in a state of "total depravity", fallen into sin and so by nature not inclined to love God.7.5/10 – Worth one viewing.

Actor Bob Crane played the lead character in the popular TV show "Hogan's Heroes", which aired in the U.S. in the sixties. "Auto Focus" is Crane's true-life story, from just before his Hollywood star rose to his downfall in the late seventies.Early on, Crane (well played by Greg Kinnear) comes across as glib, blithe, shallow, and superficial. On the surface, he's your typical happily married man with three kids and house in suburbia. His secret passion is porn magazines, which he hides from his wife.After "Hogan's Heroes" gets canceled, Crane morphs into a swinging single in the burgeoning sex scene of that era, egged on by his sleazy buddy, John Carpenter (Willem Dafoe), a photography buff. Together, they hit the bars, engage in sex with random women. And as a twist, with new video technology, they photograph their sex escapades for playback.As a swinger, Crane remains glib, blithe, shallow, and superficial. He's your Mr. nice guy for all occasions, no matter how lewd. But now we can add "clueless" to his traits. He has no insight into his own motivations, no idea of how others in the biz perceive him, nor any perspective on where his lifestyle may lead him.The film's tone starts off upbeat and perky with highly saturated colors, lots of establishment shots, and a lighthearted jazzy score. As Crane's behavior descends into decadence, colors trend more muted; the music shifts to a more somber and sad mood; and the camera moves in closer to characters. All of which convey Crane's downward drift into a surreal world of sexual obsession. And then comes the film's climax, a most unlikely occurrence but nevertheless factual.Although low budget, "Auto Focus" gets the story across. I have no serious problems with any of the technical elements. Script, film direction, casting, acting, editing, prod design, costumes, music etc. are fine. My only reservation is Bob Crane himself as portrayed in this film: selfish, insufferably roguish, and shallow-minded from start to finish.Is his story more interesting than the stories of other Hollywood actors? Yes, if for no other reason than the way his life ended, and the accompanying mystery. This annoying man may not have had much of an interior life. But his story here is well told and worth watching.

I've noted my problems with Paul Schrader's films before (too many beautiful compositions, too much arranging the posture of depth without being deep) but this is his biggest embarrassment to date. No one should have given it any rating but "total bomb." I can only hazard a guess that Schrader's Calvinist upbringing, left him with a lifelong obsession with morality and the punishment of sexual transgressions (Taxi Driver, American Gigolo, Comfort of Strangers, Mishima, Hardcore, this). All of his movies could be called The Scarlet Letter: Part 11, 12, 13, etc. He wants to show us people boning on film, but figures he can't without the free pass of a simpleton moral message. So this timorous man continually seeks out stories about salacious or tawdry lives. He does it to underscore morality, but after so many of these teasing films, one also gets a clear picture that Schrader is endlessly horny & envious of his subjects. So what's worse; a character-ruining obsession with porn, or a similarly obsessed director leering at these people?This movie is the Hollywood version of an after-school special. It's "Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Drug Abuser" with sexual addiction swapped in as the issue. It's construction is absolutely shallow. Schrader never gets around to anything BUT the moral message. There is nothing else to it. The point is so utterly obvious the movie is craving other activities to enrich it. Kinnear is miscast as are others (Has the actor playing Richard Dawson viewed even a frame of him in action? Bea Arthur is more like Dawson) and one gets the sense that Schrader wants to revisit the era, mood and accolades of Boogie Nights, but he can't orchestrate anything as complex.If I had one wish for Paul Schrader it would be that he'd have mind-blowing, bone-shaking sex without a shred of guilt about a hundred times in the next few months. Maybe then he'd stop pounding viewers over the head about temperance and restraint. He's not developing an oeuvre, he's just beating a dead horse.There probably was an interesting, thoughtful movie to make about Bob Crane. This ain't it. This is the dumbest, most artless film I've seen in about a year. A special pan goes to the graphic designer who came up with the humorous retro 50's DVD menus. I can't think of less fitting or appropriate visuals for this movie. I'm finished now ...but I think we all learned a valuable lesson. (< sarcasm)