MYSTERY DATE

US, 1991, 99 minutes, Colour.
Ethan Hawke, Teri Polo, Brian McNamara?, Fisher Stevens, B.D.Wong, Victor Wong.
Directed by Jonathan Wacks.

A youth movie - a touch of romance, a touch of action. It begins like Risky Business with a teenager being left at home by his parents. However, the tone changes when it is revealed that his freewheeling older brother is in fact a criminal and has set up his young brother on an alibi date to cover his criminal activities. With the young man, everything goes wrong on the date leading to all kinds of impossible situations with dead bodies in the boots of cars and confrontation with the head of the Chinese Tongs. There are also corrupt police.

Ethan Hawke is too serious for the light-hearted central role. Fisher Stevens has an opportunity to do a comic turn. The film is a piece of entertaining fluff - and improves after the preliminaries to get the hero going on his date.

1.Entertaining youth comedy? Thriller?

2.The American city, affluent homes, restaurants, China Town? Musical score?

3.The title and its ironies?

4.The parents, idiotic behaviour, their farewell speeches, love for their dog, the answering machine speech, the alarm clock dog . . . ?

5.Tom McHugh?, hero, hopes, studious type, introverted, ignored by his parents? Compared with his older brother Craig? The telescope and his spying on Geena? His brother's arrival, their talk, the 1959 car? The focus on Geena, Craig doing the phone call, getting new clothes, hair done, glasses and the reasons for glasses? The arrangement for the limousine? Tom going to Geena's door - her shyness, interrogation about novels, checking him out?

6.Craig and his style, legal background, the car, organising Tom's evening, covering everything? The irony of his alibi? The irony of the limousine breaking down and Tom taking his car, getting the tape?

7.Geena: attractive, testing Tom, going out, the car? Her talking about being honest and breaking through appearances? His awkward replies? In the restaurant, the girl's slapping Tom as if he were Craig? The decision to leave, using his brother's credit card? Being tracked down, the service station, his being about to be arrested, the death of the policeman, the corpse in the back of the car? His phone calls and leaving messages for Craig? Tom getting desperate, the credit card? Mistaken identity? Going to the Voltaire Club, the Chinese proverb on his back? China Town and getting the interpretation - putting the hand in the pot? The police pursuit? Doing to the restaurant, the high treatment by James Lew and his staff? The threats, happy birthday song and the escape? The discussions with Geena, telling her the truth or not? Getting Craig's address from the phone company, going and discovering his wealth? Lew abducting Geena? Dwight and the crashing of his van, meeting Tom again, Tom hanging over the cliff, Dwight falling over the cliff, his proneness to accidents? Tom going home, the message, going to Lew's house? Getting the tape, confronting Lew - and the James Bond style heroics in the house? Craig's arrival, the confrontation?

8.Tom's hero, gawky, ingenuous, becoming ingenious and heroic?

9.Geena as attractive heroine, intelligent, relationship with Tom? The parcel, the abduction, the escape?

10.Craig, the truth, his relationship with Lew, the vases, the tape? His type - and not wanting Tom to tell his parents?

11.The police and their pursuit, the arresting detective and his death, the villainous police and their tracking Tom? Confrontation with Lew and the genuine police?

12.China Town, Lew and his empire, the Tongs? Deaths, the tape as evidence, the shoot-out?

13.Enjoyable blend of the romantic and the action thriller?