Movie Reviews : ‘Killing Affair’ Done In by Its Rustic Pace

Something seems to happen to independent, low-budget film makers when they take to the country. It’s as if they’re overwhelmed by all that bucolic simplicity and all those worn Dorothea Lange faces. There have been some terrific backwoods movies, of course, but for the most part they’re tedious--mistaking awkwardness for sincerity and rambling like a mountain stream. “A Killing Affair” (selected theaters) is no exception.

It’s a brutal business which confronts an isolated West Virginia wife (Kathy Baker) with the confessed killer (Peter Weller) of her husband (Bill Smitrovich). Since the husband was a monster and since Weller convinces Baker that Smitrovich had slaughtered Weller’s own wife and children, an attraction between captor and captive begins to develop.

You can imagine that Robert Houston’s novel, “Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday,” upon which the film is based might have yielded a good movie, but writer-director David Saperstein’s approach is entirely too slack and shapeless and his use of flashbacks is more confusing than illuminating. Regardless of the setting, this is in essence a drama of psychological suspense, not a rural reverie. The lack of pace and tension allows us to consider how hard it is to penetrate Weller’s drawl--and how slight and wavering is Baker’s in comparison. Saperstein brings off an unexpected finish, but it’s too late to redeem the film.

Ironically, Weller and Baker are well cast, and it’s unfortunate that they and the novel weren’t brought together in more effective circumstances. What keeps you guessing about “A Killing Affair” (MPAA-rated R for considerable violence and bloodshed) is the year of the copyright date on the end crawl. Sure enough, it’s 1985--before Weller made the hit “RoboCop” and Baker won such acclaim for her work in “Street Smart.”