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Turtle Crossings' Spin, James Redford's feature directorial debut, will be released theatrically in October by the Innovation Film Group, Turtle Crossing CEO Susan Jackson said. The film, a coming-of-age tale set in the 1950s, stars Ryan Merriman, Paula Garces, Ruben Blades and Stanley Tucci. The film, which played the Los Angeles International Film Festival and the Mill Vally Film Festival, is based on the novel Sping, by Donald Everett Axinn, who produced the project along with Elaine M. Rogers.

MILL VALLEY, Calif. -- Writer-director James Redford's new film, which had its world premiere at the Mill Valley Film Festival, will undoubtedly attract attention because of the director's famous surname -- he's Robert's son -- but this wan coming-of-age narrative set in 1950s Tucson, Ariz., isn't likely to resonate with audiences. The film contains several flaws in the plotting, and young actor Ryan Merriman, in his first lead role, is a good-looking kid, but he doesn't possess enough screen presence to jolt the movie out of its torpor.

Based on a novel by Donald Everett Axinn (also the movie's producer), "Spin" is the story of Eddie (Merriman), a young boy whose father and mother have been killed in a plane crash. (His father was the pilot.) Eddie is now under the care of his uncle, Frank Stanley Tucci), also a pilot. Frank can't handle the responsibility and takes a long-term job abroad, leaving Eddie in the care of his ranch worker Ernesto (Ruben Blades) and his Anglo wife, Margaret (Dana Delaney). When Frank returns 10 years later, he offers to teach Eddie to fly, and Eddie has to renegotiate his relationships with his three fathers: Ernesto, Frank and his dead birth father. Eddie also courts his on-again/off-again Latina girlfriend, Francesca (Paula Garces).

Redford seems to possess a lackadaisical attitude toward basic storytelling. It takes too long for the audience to realize that Ernesto and Margaret are married (at first it seems that Margaret lives next door), and we assume Ernesto is a gardener when we first see him. (He's raking the leaves next to the driveway.) Margaret quashes Eddie's plans to work the ranch by saying, "You have to love the ranch to work it." And we wonder, what ranch? All we've seen is a hangar, an airstrip and a couple of pigs.

Some fellow jocks at school hurl some racist remarks at Eddie, and we figure it's because he's being raised by Ernesto. Later we find out Eddie is half-Latino. Merriman looks pretty waspy, and except for a too-brief shot of his mother in the plane crash at the film's beginning, there's no other clue she was Latina. Eddie's rival for Francesca, Brad (newcomer Rich Montague, who gives the best performance in the movie), encounters Francesca's wastrel father and thinks he's a jerk. We're meant to take this as racist or classist or something, but her father is a jerk -- a rather despicable one, as we learn in the very next scene.

Then when Frank tells Eddie, "You're just like your father. You're going to make the same mistakes," we pray the film doesn't mean that literally, but it does, and we've guessed the ending about an hour before it arrives.

Cinematographer Paul Ryan lets us know it's a period film by overlaying everything with sepia tones, though there are some wonderful shots of the Arizona desert. There's nothing objectionable in this film, and that's part of its problem. There's no urgency or passion, and it all remains rather bland and pallid.

"Spin" is no plane wreck, but it never really flies, either.

SPIN

Spin Prods.

Credits:

Screenwriter-director: James Redford

Producers: Donald Everett Axinn, Elaine Rogers

Director of photography: Paul Ryan

Production designer: Patti Podesta

Music: Todd Boekelheide

Costume designer: Alexis Smith

Editor: Nicholas C. Smith

Cast:

Eddie: Ryan Merriman

Frank: Stanley Tucci

Margaret: Dana Delaney

Ernesto: Ruben Blades

Francesca: Paula Garces

Brad: Rich Montague

Running time -- 114 minutes

No MPAA rating...