"Secret Agent' is countered

CHRISTOPHER HAMPTON, who beautifully adapted the epistolary novel "Dangerous Liaisons" into a fine play and an entertaining movie, has had less spectacular results as a director. His "Carrington" was notable mostly for a great performance by Jonathan Pryce rather than for its scintillating content or elegant flow.

Hampton's direction and adaptation of Joseph Conrad's novel "The Secret Agent" also are problematic. Like all of his work, this is a piece of gloriously literary and serious filmmaking, but again it falls prey to misjudgments in pacing and rhythm.

Bob Hoskins, who also produced, plays the title character,Verloc, a man who runs a pornography shop in London's Soho, a pretty racy occupation for 1886. Above the shop he lives with his wife Winnie (Patricia Arquette) and her lovable "simple" brother Stevie (Christian Bale). Below he holds meetings with his group of foreign and domestic anarchists, among them Gerard Depardieu.

Verloc has been supplementing his income by secretly performing odd jobs for the Russian embassy for 11 years. To complicate matters, for the last seven of those years, he's been a counterspy keeping an eye on the ragtag bunch of rebels for Chief Inspector Heat (Jim Broadbent) of the London police.

Verloc's busy life is more or less under control until the new man at the embassy pressures Verloc to provoke the British government into repressive measures against foreign infiltrators. A nice, clean terrorist act would be perfect. So, he suggests that Verloc either bomb the Greenwich Park Observatory or peddle his services elsewhere. In carrying out orders, Verloc neatly ruins his life.

Hoskins gives a good performance as the beleaguered family man. And Broadbent is darkly amusing, as he was in

"Enchanted April." Robin Williams appears in an uncredited role as an oddly intelligent but deeply unstable professor and explosives expert. (He's referred to as George Spelvin in the credits.) The nihilistic professor makes it a policy to offer his wares to anyone needing to make a big bang; he is in favor of social disruption of any kind.

By the final sequences of the film, "The Secret Agent" resembles far too strongly a tire missing most of its air. Unfortunately, the character we've been instructed to care about most comes to a bad end. Yet, the picture continues for another 15 minutes during which we must muster interest in characters who, up to now, the script and direction have discouraged us from considering. This mix-up in focus is a fatal mistake in a movie that is at least partially constructed to foster suspense.

And in those final moments, flashbacks explaining the muddled ending fly into action, giving a jolt completely at odds with the rest of the film's moderate speed.

I did enjoy Philip Glass' mordant score.

Movie Review "The Secret Agent'

* CAST Bob Hoskins, Patricia Arquette, Jim Broadbent, Robin Williams, Gerard Depardieu

* DIRECTOR-WRITER Christopher Hampton

* RATED R

* THEATER Vogue

* EVALUATION **<