Unlucky number

>> Simpatico stumbles at the gate

by JOANNE LATIMER

Olympic officials have been exposed for milking bribes. We know of Don King. We're generally suspicious of boxing and we exempt wrestling from all expectations of fair play. So it's hardly shocking to see a film about a horse-racing scam. The fix is in, we learn, and who cares?

 Simpatico is the name of the horse and the title of the film. Matthew Warchus directs, basing his project on a play by Sam Shepard. It becomes a study in the corruption of friendship, by default, since it doesn't function well as a mystery thriller. If it was intended to be a mystery, there's nothing much to guess: all the necessary visual evidence is given over in the opening credits. What are the odds, then, of people sitting through the first 30 minutes?

 If they do stay, it'll be because of Nick Nolte--the crusty old seadog--and Jeff Bridges. They play boyhood friends who got mixed up in some dirty horse racing in the '70s. Vinny (Nolte) had the girl (Sharon Stone) and Carter (Bridges) had the brains. There was some blackmailing involved, which brings us to Albert Finney--another good reason to watch the film. Thirty years pass, and the threesome are faced with the legacy of their days at the track.

 In a Shepard play, you expect some stellar, oblique dialogue. Where'd it go? The actors have to say such withering lines as "We had a good life. It's over," "Give up the ghost," "When the cat's away, the mouse will play" or, the best, "This is never going to end." Enough said.

 Warchus, a respected helmer in British theatre, took too much advice from the structure theorists. They told him the golden rule: every plot twist must have a seed planted in the first 10 minutes of film. That's outdated. The rule has become too transparent and the result is a connect-the-dots film like Simpatico.

 Warchus is good with actors, however, and we get four strong performances. Stone is a booze-addled society dame with enough woe to choke a horse. Nolte and Bridges go about the business of upping each other's breakdown and Finney walks away with all the dignity--his trademark. :

 

Simpatico opens Friday, February 4