Apt Pupil, 1998 - DVD

Having managed this site for a little under four years, I have been lucky enough to make some incredible friends. Bob Cochrane is one of them, who has embarked on the arduous task of adapting a Stephen King short called Luckey Quarter, from the Everything's Eventual book of short stories.

As it was explained to me, Stephen King allows the purchases of the rights to his stories (for filmmaking), if the project and the projects handlers are persuasive enough. He sells them for $1.00. From what I've come to understand, this is how Frank Darabont got to do The Shawshank Redemption... he was able to purchase the rights to one of King's short stories and made a film of it. From there, Darabont went on to direct the second film to come out of Different Seasons... Stand By Me being the first and Apt Pupil being the third.

Money made from these shorts, as I understand it, goes to charity.

After learning that Singer, fresh off of The Usual Suspects, was to direct, King went ahead and sold the rights to Apt Pupil for the same amount.

I found this a strange follow-up film for Singer. You can read an early draft of Boyce's script here. After having not seen the film for at least three years, I gave it another go, and I can see why Singer chose the project.

Boyce's script is full of tension. It's very well written, off of King's material. Hard to believe, but this was Boyce's first script... and an adaptation could have been a terrible first. We've all got our King movie that we hate, because of the writing, the acting. This could have been a disaster, but Boyce gave us some incredible moments, dialog and scenes that kept the film moving at an incredible rate.

There's a lot of people who have to share in the credit for this film. I'll get to Singer in a moment... but I think that Casting Director's  Kathryn Eisenstein and Francine Maisler did an incredible job with this film. I'm not sure if they were fully responsible for getting McKellen to play the roll of Dussender, but that man is an acting genius.

Singer would go on to use McKellen in both X-Men movies and, of course, we saw him as Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings... but his earlier work is just as impressive as his latest. His work on Gods and Monsters was his breakout performance, getting him an Oscar nomination. He was brilliant in that film, and I'm thankful that he was recognized as having such talent.

Renfro plays his roll to a T. This was one of his first starring roles, and I find it odd that he hasn't gotten more mainstream work. I know that Hollywood is flooded with good looking 20-something's, and he did star in Ghost World, which was a cool movie... I don't know.

The remaining cast was good. Better than good. They weren't thrusted into the background and forgotten. Davison (who also went on to star in X-Men) and Schwimmer (one of his best performances outside of Friends) did great jobs here. I was also impressed to see James Karen in the film, of Return of the Living Dead fame. Pretty cool.

This film doesn't have the style that Suspects had, which is fine. I think Singer concentrated more on the performances, because these characters and their situations drove this film. Style would have gotten in the way.

With the help of Newton Thomas Sigel, an accomplished DP, the two were able to create an enormous amount of tension in the simplest of scenes. With the lighting and the choices of shots, it's no wonder Singer has continued to work with Sigel on all of his projects. Sigel has done some other impressive films, including Three Kings, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, The Hire: Ambush (one of BMW's short online films directed by John Frankenheimer), and has wrapped on The Brothers Grimm for Terry Gilliam, which should be an incredible film.

Another helpful crew member is John Ottman, who not only edited the film but also composed it as well. I find this to be a very useful combination... having worked with Singer on his first feature Public Access, Ottman would work with him on Suspects, but not on the first X-Men film, which is odd. He would, however, work on the second film, which I find better than the first. Ottman has composed some decent work over the years. The Cable Guy, Halloween H20, Lake Placid, Urban Legends: Final Cut, Eight Legged Freaks and Gothika. He's also working on the third (and if the rumors are true that parts 3 and 4 shall be shot at the same time) and possibly fourth film of the X-Men series with Singer.

An impressive cast, crew, director and script, this film has an excellent pace. The characters are well thought out (you have to give credit to King for this), and very well acted. I strongly recommend this film for fans of thrillers.