Lack of Direction Leaves Silverstone With ‘Baggage’

It seems like just 10 minutes ago that Alicia Silverstone was being discovered in a throwaway thriller about a deranged adolescent girl who develops a lethal “Crush” on Cary Elwes, and maybe five minutes ago that she was “Clueless.” Now, she’s a full-fledged star of the ‘90s, with the power to produce her own major studio movies, even if they only amount to “Excess Baggage.”

What a cool thing to be a teenager with a multimillion-dollar budget, to be able to pluck a fun role out of a stack of scripts, cast a hunk like Benicio Del Toro as her romantic co-star, hire her own director and then fight with him over creative differences! Hats off to erstwhile Columbia chief Mark Canton, who got to Silverstone first, got to her before her wisdom teeth were even in, and gave her First Kiss Productions the go.

For the rest of us, the news isn’t so good. “Excess Baggage,” a scruffy romantic comedy about a despairing rich girl who hatches a kidnapping scheme to test her father’s love, is an aimless waste, a star vehicle without a compass. It wants very much to be both funny and poignant, but is more often just noisy and pointless.

Silverstone did pick a role ready-made for her. Emily Hope could be the girl from “The Crush,” after her release from the mental hospital: better, but not quite cured. Still a manipulative brat. Her wealthy father (Jack Thompson) is too busy with his shady international dealings to give her the attention she needs, so she creates increasingly elaborate pranks to distract him.

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This last one is a pip. She’s holding herself hostage and demanding a $1-million ransom, while her father, the FBI and her mysterious Uncle Ray (Christopher Walken) try to find her. But her plan goes awry when a professional auto thief named Vincent (Del Toro) steals her green BMW from the pickup spot, unaware that Emily, self-bound and gagged, is in the trunk.

Once Vincent and Emily formally meet, they evolve from hostile enemies to reluctant companions to . . . well, let’s just say the arc of their relationship generally follows that between crusty Clark Gable and petulant heiress Claudette Colbert in “It Happened One Night.” They’re on the road together in the Pacific Northwest, Vincent not wanting to go down for kidnapping as well as grand theft auto, and Emily determined not to go home.

Though John Lurie’s soundtrack music breaks its strings trying to convince us scenes are funnier than they, the resources devoted to “Excess Baggage” do cover many of its weaknesses. The cinematography of Jean Eve Escoffier is terrific, as is the scenery in British Columbia. And for what they’re given to do, Del Toro, Thompson, Walken and Nicholas Turturro, a Joe Pesci impressionist who plays one of Vincent’s dangerously unhappy clients, give solid performances.

Walken, whose name suggests how he now gets through most of his roles, plays former CIA assassin Uncle Ray as a deliberate, confident fellow with a smile that hints of both whimsy and sadism. Nobody plays this character better than Walken, and “Excess Baggage” should have taken better advantage of him.

From published accounts, it seems that Silverstone played her scenes to suit herself, rather than take direction from Marco Brambilla (“Demolition Man”), and to her credit, she stays within her demonstrated range. If she’s the star everyone is telling her she is, “Excess Baggage” will do OK.

If not, we can hope that both she and spendthrift studio executives will take a lesson from it, and give experience a chance.

* MPAA rating: PG-13 for violence, drinking and sex-related dialogue. Times guidelines: lots of drinking by Silverstone, whose character is apparently in her late teens.

‘Excess Baggage’

Alicia Silverstone: Emily

Benicio Del Toro: Vincent

Christopher Walken: Ray

Jack Thompson: Alexander

Nicholas Turturro: Stick

A First Kiss production, released by Columbia Pictures. Director Marco Brambilla. Producers Bill Borden, Carolyn Kessler, Silverstone (uncredited). Screenplay Max D. Adams, Dick Clement, Ian La Frenais. Editor Stephen Rivkin. Cinematography Jean Yves Escoffier. Production design Missy Stewart. Costumes Beatrix Aruna Pasztor. Music John Lurie. Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.

* At theaters throughout Southern California.