The Weekly Screed (#727)

When Oliver Stone
mishandled Michael Caine
by David Benjamin

MADISON, Wis. — In my newspaper days as editor of a Massachusetts weekly, the Mansfield News, I probably had too much fun. There was, for example, a summer day in 1981 when I needed to fill space in “Expeditions,” my culture column. So I took Bill Breen, high-school cub reporter, to the movies. Bill recently sent me the tearsheet…

Director Oliver Stone has done it. Mano a mano, he has met the ages-old challenge of convincing an audience to take seriously the adventures of a disembodied hand.

No one has accomplished more in this endeavor since Señor Wences offhandedly drew a face over his thumb and forefinger and made it talk on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” The thought of five little delinquent fingers creeping around between our feet hasn’t been quite so terrifyingly handled since Uncle Steve told “The Monkey’s Paw” story to a group of ten-year-olds, including me, around the campfire at 4-H camp.

Stone’s movie, released last weekend, is called The Hand. The title “character,” to say the least, is more cuticle than handsome. The story is gripping. Director Stone is determined to make a film that grabs the moviegoer and doesn’t let him go. And for good reason! After all, the sequel possibilities are near at hand and numerous.

The next film in the series could be Second Hand, in which the title creature dies, only to be resurrected in Second Hand Rose.

Spinoffs and variations would ensue. The Foot could reveal at last how Rosemary Woods reached that fateful pedal and created Richard Nixon’s 18-minute gap. Next could come The Toe: The Life Story of Lou Groza. There could also be The Lip: The Saga of Leo Durocher. Then, The Head, the harrowing tale of a toilet that went berserk. In The Finger, the mutilated hero would be a proctologist.

There hasn’t been so much potential for films about body parts since the legendary Chesty Morgan starred in Deadly Weapons.

The Hand crafts the story of a cartoonist, played without much animation by Michael Caine. He has troubles with his wife, who was once a veritable handmaiden. But now she’s playing footsy with her yoga instructor.

In the midst of this marital sparring, there’s an automobile accident (a clutch failure is suspected) in which cartoonist Caine loses his drawing hand. From this point on, Caine’s life becomes so touch-and-go that he turns into a prosthetic figure.

Meanwhile, back in a digitalis patch in upstate Vermont, the disembodied hand begins to tingle with newfound purpose. It takes on the job of manipulating Caine’s inner feelings. It will be Mr. Hand to Caine’s Dr. Jekyll.

Subliminally kneed and muscled by the hand, Caine begins to wreak revenge on his enemies — remotely. His fingers do the whacking.

Caine’s life, however, isn’t as palmy as once it was. Despite his singlehanded efforts, he can’t hold a job. Thumbing his way west, he unwittingly transports his stowaway hand. He takes a job at a seedy manual arts college in California. There, he scratches out a hand-to-mouth existence, proudly refusing handouts. But it isn’t easy. Just trying to make a simple meal of Hamburger Helper, he’s all thumbs. His only relief comes in the form of an amorous coed with magic fingers, who soon has Caine eating out of her hand. But inevitably, the relationship is handcuffed by the sinistral attentions of the hero’s missing parts.

In the climax, which crawls along at a nail’s pace, Caine’s severed fingers gain the upper hand. Mr. Hand becomes unmanageable, strangling people left and right. Caine’s bodiless meathook is caught in the act of manhandling Caine’s wife. But does the hand get the blame? No! Caine’s own daughter fingers him.

Eventually, Caine becomes a hopeless neurotic, handled — with kid gloves — by a psychiatrist.

The Hand, indeed, is a flick best handled with rubber gloves — better yet, forceps. Novelist Marc Brandel is the initial culprit, supposedly inspiring this film with a book called The Lizard’s Tail. Stone’s offshoot tries to terrify but only tickles. One suspects that Brandel has by now washed his hands of the whole enterprise.

Until you’ve seen it, you can’t fully appreciate the idea of an armless hand maneuvering around underfoot, scurrying beneath the furniture, lying in wait to grab its victims by the neck and wave its wrist menacingly.

One accidentally funny scene depicts Caine groping around a field, looking for his truncated career, while you-know-who sits on his hangnails, watching from a safe distance. The audience can ‘t help but chuckle at the scene’s heavy-handed irony. 

Stone, in this film, misplayed his hand by not going for laughs. Instead, he has fashioned an unintended farce, badly in need of a manicure.