Albino Alligator: Deliberate sacrifice for deliberate gain

Deliberate sacrifice for deliberate gain.

Albino Alligator is oscar-winner Kevin Spacey`s debut feature as director - made before he became hot in Seven and The Usual Suspects...... Albino Alligator smacks very much of a theatre piece as three escapees from a botched robbery hole up in a cheap basement bar. They are brothers Dova - Matt Dillon - and Milo - Gary Sinise, and the psychotic Law - William Fichtner. The inhabitants of the bar are the owner, M.Emmet Walsh, his bartender, Faye Dunaway and three late night drinkers - Viggo Mortensen, Skeet Ulrich and John Spencer.... unfortunately the police arrive way too soon and a siege is on with all the attendant dilemmas .... You can`t fault the performances of Spacey`s cast - Gary Sinise is particularly fine, but then this sort of `filmed theatre` is familiar territory to him. I was left feeling that Albino Alligator - the significance of the title underwhelming - is not actually a feature film, it`s the stuff of a short fiction film. None of the characters are developed, we don`t actually get to know who they are or where they come from and so I didn`t care about them. And within the confines of the bar, which is where ninety percent of the action takes place, what else have you got? - a bit of cruelty, a bit of action but nothing truly engaging. Spacey handles the direction of this slight material competently, but the film as a whole failed to make much of an impact with me.