City of Ghosts

A Moody Directorial Debut for Matt Dillon

By Gene Seymour | STAFF WRITER

April 25, 2003

(R). Matt Dillon's directorial debut is long on atmosphere and painfully short on coherence. Still, he shows promise with this moody thriller set in Cambodia, where a conscience-stricken scam artist (Dillon) searches for his mentor (James Caan) and finds more things to feel guilty about. With Stellan Skarsgard, Gerard Depardieu, Natascha McElhone and Sereyvuth Kem. Written by Dillon and Barry Gifford. 1:47. (violence, vulgarisms). At area theaters.

It's not every veteran leading man who can claim movies by both Francis Ford Coppola and the Farrelly brothers on his resume. But one would have to believe that Matt Dillon, who went from heartthrob to underrated cult figure in relatively little time, picked up enough interesting pointers from such varied experiences to use when his time came to move people around in front of the cameras.

"City of Ghosts," Dillon's directorial debut, turns out to be as fascinating as one would expect. It's a gallant attempt at a Graham Greene- ish exotic thriller set in present-day Cambodia, where Jimmy Cremmins (Dillon) has come, in part, to escape the clutches of federal investigators looking into an insurance scam that left thousands of Florida hurricane survivors without coverage on lost homes. Jimmy, who was front man for the operation, seems shaken by what's happened; he comes to Phnom Penh looking for Marvin (James Caan), his mentor. It's not clear why Jimmy wants to see Marvin. But it's strongly implied, especially by another business associate (the incomparably slimy Stellan Skarsgard) that Marvin's into a whole new venture and wants Jimmy to stay away.

Eventually, the plot chokes and stumbles on its atmospheric effects. But Dillon has an encouraging affinity for landscape, tension and eccentricity. (Caan, who almost never works in an uninteresting movie, has an altogether unsettling encounter with a karaoke machine.) One leaves "City of Ghosts" disappointed, but intrigued by what Dillon could do with a leaner, chewier script.