Nobody's Fool

Screen legend leads stellar cast in funny, satisfying film loaded with small but worthy pleasures.

Paul Newman has always played complicated characters, people with as many negative as positive traits. No blue-eyed, matinee-idol posturing for him, with roles as hard-nosed as the alcoholic lawyer of "The Verdict," the fall-guy pool player in "The Hustler" and, of course, "Hud," "Cool Hand Luke" and a host of others.

It's no contradiction that these less than sympathetic characters become compelling and understandable human beings in the capable hands of a top-flight actor — and that's Newman to a T.

So it is a pleasure to see that his latest starring vehicle, the comedy-drama "Nobody's Fool," is yet another major success in this gallery of underdogs — the disillusioned, live-for-the-moment and perpetually down-on-his-luck Donald Sullivan, known to his friends as "Sully."

The film is episodic in nature, with more of a series of incidents and subplots than a central story line.

Set in a small town in upstate New York, the film has Sully living as a boarder with his former eighth-grade schoolteacher Miss Beryl (the late Jessica Tandy), who, after all these years, still continually encourages him to try and reach his potential.

A 60-year-old construction worker with no money and no prospects, Sully periodically takes on jobs for Carl Roebuck (Bruce Willis), a local contractor whom Sully is suing over his bum knee. It's a love-hate relationship — and not all that dissimilar to the one Carl has with his wife Toby (Melanie Griffith), who is tired of Carl's cheating ways.

Then there's Sully's Jewish lawyer Wirf (Gene Saks), who is prone to putting his wooden leg into the pot during poker games; Sully's dull-witted best friend Rub (Pruitt Taylor Vince), his construction-job helper; and Miss Beryl's banker-son Clive, who is trying to land a theme park contract to inject some economic life to the flagging town.

Most of the film is made up of Sully's encounters with these characters, as he reluctantly tries to help them solve their problems. But at the film's core is his estranged relationship with his adult son Peter (Dylan Walsh). After a chance encounter, Sully tries his hand at being a grandfather to Peter's young boy. He's not very good at it, but his efforts gradually bring about a tenuous reconciliation.

"Nobody's Fool" is written and directed by Robert Benton (from a novel by Richard Russo), whose successes are wildly successful ("Kramer vs. Kramer," "Places in the Heart") and whose failures are major bombs ("Billy Bathgate," "Nadine"). Fortunately, most of this one finds him in top form, especially with the dialogue. Benton doesn't attempt to gloss over any of his characters' flaws or sentimentalize the situations, and the humor — of which there is plenty — is inherent, chiefly through Sully's wry observations.

But the story is a bit too fragmented, crying out for more cohesion and depth. And every now and then Benton throws in something that is ridiculously gratuitous — as in an extended poker sequence toward the end of the film, in which a topless woman (one of Carl's bimbos) sits in on the game. There are also times when the pranks that Sully and Carl play on each other begin to look like "Grumpy Old Men."

Still, despite its drawbacks, there are loads of low-key, small but worthy pleasures. And there's no question that it is a wonderful showcase for 70-year-old Newman, who gets too few these days. The rest of the cast is also uniformly excellent.

Highly entertaining, quite often hilarious and with Newman on track for yet another Oscar nomination, "Nobody's Fool" is wonderfully satisfying.

It is rated R for profanity, vulgarity and nudity, and some violence.