Eyewitness

It's easy to say that this is much less than the sum of its parts - part fairytale love story, in which a poor boy loves and wins rich TV reporter, part soufflé of New York paranoia, which involves a murder (with a Vietnamese background) in the building where the poor boy works as a janitor. However, it is rare to find an American film these days that manipulates its plot to accommodate the relationships (and there are lots of them - friends, families, dogs), and whose characters are at least interesting. Steve Tesich's script sometimes smacks of screenwriting classes, but Yates (who worked with Tesich on Breaking Away) easily accommodates these lapses with his unfussy, medium-fast direction. Indeed, he guides his cast around the furniture better than most. The result is an enjoyable entertainment whose box-office failure was thoroughly undeserved.