MOVIE REVIEW : ‘Ambition’ Writer Phillips Slips, Star Phillips Shines

“Ambition” (citywide) is a sleekly photographed thriller about a young writer who insinuates himself into the life of a paroled serial killer, twisting him around like a puppet on strings to develop material for a breakthrough bestseller.

It’s not at all a good movie, even though, for a low-budget feature, it’s often well-shot, edited and acted--especially by star-screenwriter Lou Diamond Phillips. As much as he shines in the first role (acting as the young writer), Phillips stumbles in the second (writing for his actors).

None of “Ambition’s” qualities--and it has some, including surprisingly strong contributions from director-editor Scott D. Goldstein and cinematographer Jeffrey Jur--let the movie rise above its scrambled initial conception. Even as an eerie Leonard Rosenman score jangles the audience’s nerves, the movie keeps staggering under the ludicrously contrived machinations of its villain/protagonist: Filipino-American bookstore manager and would-be writer Mitchell Osgood (Phillips).

Osgood, bizarrely, seems to think a proposed true-crime volume will sell better if he can tease the now-rehabilitated killer (Clancy Brown) into another murder, or perhaps a series of murders. And, to that end, he keeps playing elaborate mind games: putting a huge, bloodstained cardboard display of the killer in the store where they both work, inviting the killer’s dotty mother unexpectedly to dinner, sending him prostitutes to trigger sexual kinks. All the while, he bewails his father Tatay’s (Haing S. Ngor) protracted battle with cancer--hinting at a possible solution by euthanasia.

Writer Phillips hasn’t gone easy on himself, the way young actors-turned-screenwriters often do these days. He hasn’t written himself a star turn as a noble or misunderstood hero, or a rascally-but-redeemable hero . . . or any kind of hero. Instead, by casting himself as the amoral Osgood, he’s made himself a heavy: an opportunist endangering everyone around him.

Phillips makes the part his own; perhaps he should play heavies more often. The acting is good throughout--the always estimable Richard Bradford (as a parole officer) and Willard Pugh (as raffish bookstore employee Freddy) shine specially--but Phillips gives himself a reptilian showcase. In “Ambition” (rated R for violence, partial nudity and language), he craftily evokes the amoralist’s easy narcissistic charm, the coldness beneath it.

‘Ambition’

Lou Diamond Phillips: Mitchell Osgood

Clancy Brown: Killer

Haing S. Ngor: Tatay

Richard Bradford: Parole officer

A Spirit presentation of a Richard E. Johnson production, released by Miramax. Director-editor Scott D. Goldstein. Producer Richard E. Johnson. Co-producer Gwen Field. Screenplay by Lou Diamond Phillips. Cinematographer Jeffrey Jur. Music Leonard Rosenman. Production design Marek Dobrowolski. With Cecilia Peck, Willard Pugh. Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes.

MPAA-rated R (violence, nudity, language).