Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, March 5, 1994                   TAG: 9403050091
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 12   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By MIKE MAYO CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

`GREEDY' WILL KEEP YOU GUESSING

Like an Ann Landers letter, the film is a shifting mixture of comedy and melodrama and it's not always easy to tell which is which. In "real life" that's to be expected. In the movies it makes for a certain amount of audience confusion.

Here's the situation: Scrap metal tycoon Joe McTeague (Kirk Douglas) is surrounded by a host of greedy neices and nephews played with understated comic zest by Ed Begley Jr., Mary Ellen Trainor, Colleen Camp, Bob Balaban, Jere Burns, Joyce Hyser, Sioban Fallon and particularly Phil Hartman.

They're all doing their best to butter up the old boy, but he's so mean that the mere mention of his name is enough to send young children screaming from the room. The kinfolk spend their time fighting with each other until Molly (Olivia d'Abo), a sexy pizza girl, moves in with Joe. To find out what she's up to, they entice Uncle Joe's favorite nephew Daniel (Michael J. Fox) back into the fold.

Daniel and his girlfriend Robin (Nancy Travis) are reluctant at first, but life is easy at the mansion, and Joe has moments of genuine charm.

From that elaborate premise, writers Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel spin out a story that attempts to combine moments of slapstick humor and sharp verbal wit with equally important moments of emotional seriousness. They're not completely successful and the film is irritatingly slow in the second half, but it's still interesting all the way through. You want to know what's going to happen, and the plot will keep you guessing.

Director Jonathan Lynn almost steals the film from his ensemble cast as Douglas, the sharp-tongued butler. Behind the camera, he generally handles the action well. The real surprise though is the rapport that Kirk Douglas and Michael J. Fox establish. They work well together in one of those inspired accidents of casting that can turn a run-of-the-mill comedy into a real hit.

Greedy ***

A Universal release playing at the Tanglewood Mall and Salem Valley 8, 110 min. Rated PG-13 for strong language, subject matter.