Touch

It may be a bit enigmatic and cerebral for some tastes, but if you don't mind your spirituality being served from a cracked chalice, you may find Touch is exactly what you've been seeking. [14 Feb 1997, p.G]

Touch is not one of those movies that hurtles toward a slam-bang climax. A bemused gloss on the varieties of religious experience, it knows enough to take its time, making sure we enjoy ourselves along the way.

The plot of Touch sounds like a comedy. But the experience of seeing the film is subduing; the movie plays in a muted key.

The playfulness and high spirits bubbling from the pages of Leonard's novels are squelched by Schrader's earnestness. Schrader's touch with Touch isn't light, and it costs him. [14 Feb 1997, p.D9]

It's a light-hearted comedy about faith, transcendence and American-brand exploitation, and addresses those issues in such goofy, indirect, unhurried fashion that you could easily miss what Schrader has to say.

Ultimately, Schrader pulls us into a mind-over-matter kind of purgatory: Fun and original as his film is, it lacks feeling and heart.

Simply put, Touch dies, with nary a resurrective hand in sight. [14 Feb 1997, p.C5]