Simpatico MPAA Rating: R Entertainment: +2 Content: -2

Based on a play by Sam Shepard, this unusual story focuses on three miserable people. Vinnie (Shawn Hatosy/ Nick Nolte), Carter (Liam Waite/ Jeff Bridges) and Rosie (Kimberly Williams/ Sharon Stone) have been friends since childhood. But as young adults, they discovered a get-rich-quick scheme of manipulating horse races. Now in their 40s, all three suffer from guilt. Carter, a wealthy horse breeder lives in Kentucky with Rosie. They support Vinnie, a drunk living in a filthy shack in Los Angeles. Rosie seldom leaves her bedroom, apparently struggling with depression. Vinnie has a film of the sordid events 20 years earlier that the three staged to make sure the racing commissioner, Simms (Albert Finney), would never blow the whistle on them. Now, in the midst of selling his prize stallion, Simpatico, Carter receives a frantic call from Vinnie. Vinnie wants to vindicate himself by returning the film to the racing commissioner, who lost his job and his family. Its hard to sympathize with the corrupt characters in this disjointed story. SIMPATICO is not a very nice way to spend 106 minutes.

Vinnie's alcohol addiction is his destructive way of coping with guilt, while Rosie withdraws from reality. When Vinnie finally traces the whereabouts of Simms, the portly gentleman tells Vinnie he made a new life for himself and doesn't want the film. But the supposedly respectable commissioner was easily lured to a motel for sex with the young Rosie. Especially disgusting, Rosie participates in the act while her two friends film it. These crude images are repeated several times in flashbacks and contain graphic motions, but no nudity. The film is further cluttered with filthy language that includes 14 f-words and nine regular profanities. The real tragedy in the story is that nothing is resolved. Carter leaves Rosie in emotional despair and moves in with Vinnie, while Simms is shown making suggestive advances to a woman young enough to be his daughter. Betrayal, deception and mental suffering fill the plot while many obscenities, profanities and a repetitive, graphic sex scene add to viewers' discomfort. SIMPATICO earns pity rather than sympathy.

Preview Reviewer: Mary Draughon
Distributor: FineLine Features, 888 Seventh Ave., NY, NY 10106