Martin Brest has very few pictures I REALLY enjoy. However, this one is one of them. It hurts me to think this is the same writer/director who came up with "Gigli."

"Scent of a Woman" is about a high schooler, named Charlie, played by Chris O'Donnell (Circle of Friends), who's attending a prestigious boarding school when he decides to take a temp job as caretaker of an aging retired colonel named Frank Slade, played by Al Pacino (Heat). Slade, who was blinded during his years in the army, soon reveals himself as a crusty man with a big mouth.

Charlie gets in trouble at school and is given Thanksgiving break to think about whether or not he's going to snitch on some schoolmates who ruined the head master's Jaguar with a prank.

During the break, Col. Slade makes Charlie suit up and escort him on a plane to New York City. There, Slade finally confesses his plans to his new employee. He plans to eat at a fancy restaurant, sleep in a five star hotel, see his brother--sort of speak, make love to a beautiful woman and blow his brains out in his room. The rest of the picture holds this tension between Slade and Charlie, as Charlie attempts to figure out if the colonel was kidding about suicide.

The picture is extremely long, and very sappy in spots. In one scene, blind Colonel Slade drives a Ferarri and talks his way out of a speeding ticket. This is of course far from believable, but the scene was fairly necessary for Frank to get out and have fun. Director Brest simply took the sequence too far.

Overall, Brest did a fine job focusing on the picture's performances, since this is what was carrying the picture. His shot selection was extremely stagnant, but the two main characters where very fun and fleshed out well. The climax of the picture, where Col. Slade comes to the defense of Charlie at school, was completely overdone. However, by then, I didn't care. I dug the characters so much, I let go a lot of my usual criticisms.

Al Pacino stars as Col. Slade, who won an Academy Award® for this role in 1993. He was loud and boisterous, but when it was time to show Frank Slade as a quiet hurting man, Pacino completely earned the award.

Chris O'Donnell was the same as any role I've seen him in, where he plays a young person. However, he was impressive in only that he didn't allow himself to get chewed up in SO MANY scenes across from Pacino. He definitely deserves commending for that.

Another decent performance came from a fairly young Philip Seymour Hoffman as a schoolmate of Charlie's, used to contrast the kind of person Charlie is and the kinds of kids who normally attend a school like Baird. Hoffman was extremely pompous, which I hear is no great stretch for him. He was fun to watch in this.

Overall, "Scent of a Woman" was one of my favorite movies of 1993. It was welcomed with Academy Award® nominations as Best Picture and to Brest as Best Director. Both were well deserving, I felt. If you're a Pacino fan, you HAVE to catch this one.

Benn - Where's the Humanity?