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The Big Kahuna
Directed by John Swanbeck
Lions Gate Films/Universal

The Big Kahuna playfully engages the mind in the moral quest of the three souls who have speaking parts: two worldly marketing reps and their otherworldly research technician, an earnest young man of evangelical conviction. The Big Kahuna had typically brief runs in arthouse cinemas earlier this year, and is now available on video.

The two salesmen hope to reel in a big account by cornering a corporate VIP (the big kahuna) at a convention in Wichita, Kansas. The natural fissures among the trio begin to show when the callow researcher's religious zeal impedes their efforts.

The drama of ideas—chiefly integrity, and what it means to be fully human—quickly follows. It is enfleshed in the conflict between the glib and acid wit of Larry (Kevin Spacey) and the certainty of faith in the otherwise uncertain Bob (played expertly by the up-and-coming Peter Facinelli of Supernova and Can't Hardly Wait). The older, shopworn Phil (Danny DeVito) tries wanly to arbitrate the inexorable conflict with a dark detachment made possible by his general resignation from life. DeVito is unusually haunting in his cloaked expressions of brooding despair.

Mirrors are a consistent leitmotif in this film, which unashamedly smacks of the play it is based on (Roger Rueff's Hospitality Suite). Bob—representing American evangelicals—is challenged to look the hardest at his own reflection.

His evangelizing techniques are likened to the marketing methods oozing throughout the convention; thus evangelicals presumably are taken to task for selling Jesus just as Larry and Phil hope to sell industrial lubricants.

The parallel not only raises questions about evangelicals' motives and methods but also serves up Spacey's impeccable delivery hot and fresh.

Larry, valiantly restraining his fury about Bob's spiritual conversation with the big kahuna, says, "Well, did you mention what kind of industrial lubricants Jesus would have endorsed?"

The film raises questions about faith in the workplace in a way that cinema rarely achieves. Our trio's personal drives and concerns are well-rounded and textured enough to tease out the themes of compromise and sacrifice without viewers being able to choose sides too easily.

Christians will find the story provides a good starting point for discussion about marketplace issues. One topic might be whether the drama contains a trite postmodern message against foisting one's beliefs on others; another could be whether there is a suggestion that faith and business are practically incompatible. Larry's dogmatic drive to sell and Bob's lopsided idea of Christian commitment seem to reinforce this false dichotomy.

The wedge the screenplay (also by Rueff) drives between work and faith is the crux of the film's only flaw: realism based on contrived (unreal) conflicts. The very artifices necessary to sustain dramatic tension in a dialogue-driven film, consisting of three men in a hotel suite, wreak havoc on realism.

These contrived situations probably wouldn't matter if this were classical drama, but this film goes beyond that genre with pretensions of gritty realism.

The deep conversations of life and death and God that Larry and Phil have in the dark, still moments of the night are excruciatingly realistic, to the point that the closeups, lighting and backdrops of John Swanbeck's directorial debut nearly give a nod to My Dinner with Andre.

The first artifice resides in the figure cut by Baptist Bob. Throughout the film he is portrayed in his hesitant, wet-behind-the-ears way as eager to do the right thing for the company. Yet somehow he can't bring himself to do the minimum asked of him by his colleagues and is even willing to face the volatile Larry with this negligence. Even more unrealistic and inconsistent, Bob excuses himself by saying he didn't want the big kahuna to think he was speaking about Christ only "to cozy up to him, to get him to sign some contract."

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November 13 2000, Vol. 44, No. 13