Daily Staff Writer

“U-Turn”

“U-Turn” is a fine example of Oliver Stone’s work after he discovered MTV — and thank God for it, too. If he did one more Vietnam flick, film critics everywhere would have to get a court order requiring him to remain at least 100 yards from the subject.

“U-Turn” stars Sean Penn (“The Thin Red Line”) as Bobby Cooper, a short-tempered drifter whose car has broken down in a backwater town in the middle of the Southwest.

He is left at the mercy of Billy Bob Thornton (“Slingblade”) as an “ignorant, inbred, tumbleweed hick” mechanic who takes offense at Cooper’s disdain for his “shit hole” town and his lack of respect for his precarious situation.

Cooper finds himself with some time to kill and everywhere he goes he meets characters intent on involving him in their lives and schemes.

He strikes the local land baron, Jack McKenna (Nick Nolte: “48 Hours,” “Teachers”) as the kind of man who can kill his wife, played by Jennifer Lopez (“Anaconda,” “Antz”), because he sees Cooper as a man without ethics and “a man with no ethics is a free man.”

Tempted by the money, Cooper decides to give it a try but is soon ensnared by Grace McKenna’s wiles.

The plot twists and turns unpredictably keeping audience members eagerly attentive.

Stone changes techniques from one shot to the next as he did in “Natural Born Killers,” which gives this film a frenetic feeling. It is a treat for the eyes.

Thornton is hilarious as the “tumbleweed hick” Darrel who teaches Cooper why he shouldn’t smart off to the only mechanic in 500 miles.

Claire Danes’ (“William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet,” television’s “My So-called Life”) cameo as a horny teenager trying to make her boyfriend jealous is worth the movie’s rental price. She tells Cooper, “Don’t go nowhere without me. I wanna have your love child.”

Don’t go nowhere without this movie.

-Greg Jerrett

“In Dreams”

For anyone looking for a tactfully frightening movie to rent this weekend, the schizo-horror flick “In Dreams” is definitely the route to go.

Directed by Neil Jordan, this thriller takes on the dream world with a frightening glance at psychic premonitions of murder.

The movie places Annette Bening as “Claire Cooper,” an illustrator of children’s books, who begins to have waking dreams and visions of acts of murder.

The police and even her own 747-flying husband (Aidan Quinn) don’t know what to make of her premonitions and play them off as nothing but dreams.

However, the dreams become all to real when Claire’s own daughter is taken and murdered by the serial killer, Vivian Thompson, played by Robert Downey, Jr.

Claire ends up in a mental hospital under strict supervision after trying to kill herself because the dreams were too much for her. She has a strange connection with the killer, and he haunts her every waking moment, driving her to insanity.

Claire eventually escapes from the hospital and tracks down Thompson by somehow transporting her thoughts to the time when Thompson himself had stayed in that very same hospital as a boy and escaped to the Massachussets’ woods.

The final confrontation between Claire and the man who haunts her dreams is suspenseful test of wills.

Robert Downey, Jr.’s portrayal of the madman is convincing, but Bening’s composure and style makes for an excellent performance and makes this movie worth seeing.

-Kevin Hosbonds