Wenders' 'Knocking' an interesting stumble

Robert Denerstein, Rocky Mountain News

Friday, April 7, 2006

Wim Wenders began his directorial career in the late '60s, part of what became known as the German New Wave. But Wenders seems to work as much in the U.S. as in Germany, and he's always been fascinated by the American West.

Oddly, Wenders remains one of the few directors working today who still seems to be searching for the essential America - a task that adds flavor to his new movie, Don't Come Knocking.

Another foray into the American West, Don't Come Knocking marks the second collaboration between Wenders and playwright Sam Shepard, who wrote one of Wenders' most acclaimed films, 1984's Paris, Texas.

This time, Shepard appears in the movie, as well. He plays Howard Spence, a movie cowboy trying to escape a career that has pigeonholed him as an American icon - although perhaps an icon with cut-rate status.

In the movie's opening scene, we learn that Howard appears in the kind of movies no one makes anymore, a signal that Knocking shouldn't be taken entirely on realistic terms.

It's a kind of fable that's trying to be down-to-earth and a little mythic at the same time, not an easy task and one the movie only intermittently manages.

Shepard and Wenders combined to write a script with a big emotional issue at its center. Knocking tells the story of a man who's trying to understand what it means to be a father, and although the director has a great command of imagery, his movie doesn't quite settle into a believable groove.

If there are things to appreciate about Don't Come Knocking, some of them have to do with performance, notably Jessica Lange's. Lange plays Doreen, the woman with whom Howard conceived a child during some long-ago location shoot in Butte, Mont.

During his flight from movie life, Howard visits his mother (Eva Marie Saint), a woman he hasn't seen in 30 years. She lives in Elko, Nev., which allows Howard to indulge his interest in drinking and gambling. His mother tells him she once heard from a woman who claimed to have had his child. Howard decides to go looking.

In running away, Howard discovers connections he didn't know he had. Howard's not big on connections, but he may have found a direction for his floundering life. All the while, he's being trailed by a representative from the company (Tim Roth) that has insured the film he left.

The movie eventually brings Howard into contact with his son (Gabriel Mann), who plays in a local band and has a strange hippie girlfriend (Fairuza Balk). Not surprisingly, this young man wants nothing to do with a man who's more stranger than father. And to make matters even more complicated, Howard learns that he has a daughter (Sarah Polley) in the same town. He didn't know about her, either.

When the movie arrives in Butte, the scenes become a little less realistic. In a fit of rage, Mann's character throws all his furniture into the street. It's emblematic of a movie that strains to be emotionally vivid and a little cracked, a collection of quirky touches and thorny situations.

Don't get me wrong. Don't Come Knocking isn't a bad movie, just one that doesn't seem to be fully worked out.

It has the feel of an idea that was kicked around without ever finding its footing. Howard stumbles onto a direction for his life, and the movie stumbles along with him.