It's nice to see Robert Altman doing studio work again. After 1980's disastrous-in-most-ways Popeye, the director steered clear of mainstream Hollywood entirely. Perhaps this is a chicken-egg scenario and it steered clear of him, but no matter: his return to a more formulaic brand of filmmaking showcases the director at his best and not-so. The Gingerbread Man is based on a dusty screenplay by John Grisham; curiously, several Important Filmmakers have adapted Grisham in the past (Sydney Pollack, Alan Pakula, and Francis Coppola), but nobody's done it with more personality than Altman.

Kenneth Branagh stars as a loutish Savannah lawyer named Rick Magruder who discovers after a celebration in his honour the pretty caterer Mallory Doss (Embeth Davidtz) screaming at her stolen vehicle as it peels away. Magruder offers her a ride home. She accepts. Lovemaking ensues. He learns of her crazy father, Dixon (Robert Duvall in a superb cameo), the probable thief of her car--the man likely also to have hanged her tabby from the ceiling. Magruder decides to prosecute Dixon, fearing for Mallory's safety; the judge declares the unkempt, lawyer-waiving Dixon a nutjob almost upon sight. The following day, however, as the (amusingly named) Hurricane Geraldo threatens the town, Dixon busts loose from the institution. Magruder's sanity comes undone as the lives of Mallory and his own children are placed in jeopardy, but is Dixon the only cause for worry?

Altman's rapport with actors is evidential here, though a significant amount of improvisation is not. The easy-going performances he coaxes from Daryl Hannah (very sexy in red hair and specs) as Magruder's loyal assistant Lois, and Robert Downey Jr. as Clyde, a womanizing snoop, nevertheless lack the looseness we've come to expect from contributions to an Altman ensemble piece. Branagh demonstrates somewhat untapped range here with a flawless southern drawl, and his eagerness to play Magruder as an uncharming dimwit is admirable--if the acting is straight-arrow professional, at least the characters are proto-Altman antiheroes. Davidtz makes for a subtle femme fatale, convincing us that she's oblivious to her sexuality even as she uses it to get what she wants in every scene. The epitome of this difficult portrayal arrives near the start of the picture, when Mallory chooses a moment she's au naturel nude to beg for Magruder's compassion.

Magruder's paranoia is unfortunately one of the film's least successful elements, both in terms of plot and character. Altman is no stranger to mental breakdown and anguish (witness his deft handling of Griffin Mill (Tim Robbins) in The Player), but in The Gingerbread Man, they serve the resolution a little too comfortably--it's the climax feeding the foreshadow. Altman's trademark zooms and wide angles are in full effect and breathe fresh air into the Grisham genre. He also drenches every exterior in increasingly harsh rain and it doesn't feel like an atmospheric gimmick--the constant downpour serves to draw us deeper into the story. (The film's literally sunny epilogue is atypically optimistic of Altman and also jarring to our eyes.) Why only two-and-a-half stars? Because there are now as many lawyer movies as there are lawyer jokes, and no matter the auteur, it won't change the fact that movies in the vein of The Gingerbread Man are ultimately superfluous.-Bill Chambers