Hellcab

Thanks to Internet word-of-mouth among the art house set, I'd been looking forward for months to this slice-of-life story about a day in the life of a Chicago taxi driver. But, geez, what a disappointment. The concept, to follow an unnamed, good-natured, somewhat overage non-racist skinhead cabbie (Paul Dillon) through his thankless travails on a frigid winter solstice, the longest night of the year, had worlds of promise, enough so that John Cusack hopped onboard as executive producer. But what we get are dozens of brief cameos from only a few people, such as Cusack, Gillian Anderson, Michael Ironside, and Laurie Metcalf, that you're likely to recognize (not that there aren't great possibilities in using unknowns), reciting pointless, obnoxious, embarrassing dialogue, chewing their nails, and constantly swearing but not doing it very well. While Dillon himself has an interesting look, and is mildly intriguing to watch, his few good scenes -- with a receptionist he returns to when her yuppie scum paramour confides his real feelings after dropping her off, a rape victim (Julianne Moore) seeking at least a little of the comfort she didn't get from the cops, and an engaging young black architect spending his first holidays alone after his mother's death -- aren't worth enduring the rest for. Scripted by Will Kern from his supposedly excellent play "Chicago Cab," Hellcab can perhaps blame its inconsistency on the use of not one but two first-time directors, who might have had divergent notions about which way the film should go. And you know what can happen when two people don't agree about who's gonna drive. D

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