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Speaking of basketball -- in the same way that relatively few former players make it as coaches, not too many actors find success directing. Sadly, that doesn't keep them from trying with alarming regularity. Case in point: Edward Norton might be the best actor of his generation. That's a broad statement, but from his first film role, the calculating murderer feigning schizophrenia in Primal Fear (which earned an Oscar nomination), it was obvious he's more than just another fleeting transient. But in stepping behind the camera for this clerical dramedy, he further illustrates that the two are entirely separate talents.
The plot is cute enough: Norton and Ben Stiller play Brian and Jake, priest and rabbi in the same NYC neighborhood where they've been friends since childhood. Both have found success as charismatic iconoclasts who revive their congregations with non-traditional methodology. Things are going great until the girl they both idolized as kids, Anna (Jenna Elfman), returns to town for a business stay. Before you can say "The Inquisition," the ecclesiastical truce is in danger, and everybody's feelings are hurt.
Keeping the Faith is funny in places, and touching in others, but there are long, long stretches where it's neither. Another lesson Norton needs to learn is not to let your friend write your movie just because he had a part in a film you starred in; first-time screenwriter Stuart Blumberg played a small role in Fight Club. He mixes silly, farcical, slapstick details (i.e., Jake collects "Heroes of the Torah" trading cards; Brian practically burns down the church with a censer) with more interesting things about love and faith, and one severely detracts from the other. Worse, he litters the dialogue with tossed-off witticisms that seem to be there solely to illustrate his glibness quotient, like he's trying out for "Win Ben Stein's Money." Occasionally the proceedings even grind to a halt when one character has to explain why what another said is funny, ruining it for anyone in the audience who did get the joke. There is a fair amount of suspense about who Anna will wind up with, but by the time we find out, I was ready for Torquemada to show up and kill them all for ecumenical infidelity. (Torquemada was Grand Inquisitor, who burned 2,000 people and was a notorious anti-Semite. See how it loses something when you explain?) C
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