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

DATE: SATURDAY, October 28, 1995                   TAG: 9510310008
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: B-12   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: CHRIS HEWITT KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

`COPYCAT' IS GOOFY, YET ENTERTAINING

Harry Connick Jr. is the maniac du jour in ``Copycat.'' Connick's smooth-as-snot charm has always rubbed me the wrong way, anyway, so it's a doubly effective jolt to see him playing a seedy, trash-talking serial killer somehow connected to a series of San Francisco murders patterned after the heinous crimes of history's most famous murderers (your Dahmer, your Son of Sam, your Boston Strangler).

``Copycat'' comes a bit late in the serial-killer game, but the acting raises it a notch. Holly Hunter is terrific as the maddeningly efficient, funny cop on the case - she's like the woman you knew in college who was president of the student senate and homecoming queen. Hunter comes up with inventive, perfectly pitched line readings and she swiftly conveys that her character has nearly faultless instincts.

Hunter teams up with Sigourney Weaver, a criminologist famous for understanding the minds of madmen. ``I'm their damn pin-up,'' Weaver cracks, slamming back a booze-and-pills Judy Garland cocktail. ``They all know me.'' After a run-in with Connick, Weaver has become so frightened of the mean old world that she's forced to spend all her time in her gorgeous, stunningly decorated condo. Weaver doesn't like Hunter (she calls her ``the wee inspector''), and Weaver's flinty, tough, desperately scared performance is a knock-out.

The script for ``Copycat'' gives both actresses great dialogue, but it's not always coherent. ``Copycat'' isn't as intense as ``Seven'' or ``Silence of the Lambs'' because the plot gets a little goofy in some spots. It's the movie's conceit that serial killers are perfecting a murderous art form - an interesting idea, but it turns ridiculous when we actually observe the movie's Monet of Mayhem at work. No killer would ever devise a plan this dazzlingly, elaborately vicious.

``Copycat'' succeeds because the hunter and the hunted are both equally intelligent and because the puzzle becomes more interesting as the pieces come together. And if the movie's occasional goofiness siphons off some of the intensity and creepiness, well, maybe that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Copycat

A Warner Bros. release playing at the Salem Valley 8 and Tanglewood Mall Theatre. 123 min. Rated R for language, violence and graphic pictures of nude murder victims.