Being Human

Being Human Robin Williams, John Turturro (1994, Warner, PG-13, priced for rental) Seldom has a film from an established director (Local Hero‘s Bill Forsyth) with a major star gotten so summarily dismissed by critics and shunned by audiences. Williams (at his most restrained) plays five men throughout history, each of whom suffers from a failure in courage. The film falls prey to the problems inherent in the short-story form-lack of continuity, underdeveloped characters, clumsy narration-though these all fare better on video, since you don’t have to watch it as a complete and continuous experience. Moreover, it stays in the mind long after it ends, simply because the behavior we’ve witnessed is so troubling and, well, so human. B —Lawrence O’Toole