Don Juan DeMarco (1995) * * 1/2

Directed by:  Jeremy Leven

Starring:  Johnny Depp, Marlon Brando, Faye Dunaway, Bob Dishy

Don Juan DeMarco is a frustrating, uneven film.   When it's working, it's very involving.   There are long stretches in which it doesn't work, however.    The film falls into a familiar pattern:  Don Juan tells his story to psychiatrist Jack Mickler (Brando) and after each session, Jack goes home feeling a bit more frisky with his wife.    Don Juan should consider becoming a couples therapist.     He gets results.

As the film opens, a 21-year old who dresses like a 19th-century Spanish nobleman (including a Lone-Ranger type mask) seduces a woman in a hotel and then decides to commit suicide since there are no more women left to conquer.     He obviously didn't read Wilt Chamberlain's autobiography.     After the suicide attempt, he is hospitalized and placed under the care of Mickler, who will be retiring in 10 days.     Don Juan speaks with a foreign accent and his delusion is inpenetrable.     His story consists of his growing up in a remote Mexican town where everyone behaves as if it were the 19th century.     He regales Mickler with stories of many great loves, swordfights, defending honor, travels to other countries, etc.     Don Juan is full of charm and charisma.    The female nurses at the hosptial go gaga over him.     Mickler has his final days to decide whether Don Juan should be institutionalized or set free, all the while renewing the spark that had gone out in his marriage to Marilyn (Dunaway).

Don Juan DeMarco works when Don Juan is weaving his romantic, idealized tales.    Of course, they are masking great traumas.     Depp is up to the task here and creates a vibrant character we respond to.     Is he simply viewing the world through a different looking glass than everyone else?     Maybe, but he's the movie's strongest asset.     The movie falters when it uses Don Juan's fantasies to propel Mickler into becoming his own Don Juan.      I would've rather seen Brando portray a garden-variety shrink who was single.    

Brando, who has played Don Corleone, Jor-El, Col. Kurtz, and Terry from On The Waterfront, is simply not convincing when he's walking around with a spring in his step giving flowers to everyone.     He plays each scene with the same offhand stoicism.    He doesn't move us like Don Juan does.     While Mickler was wooing his wife all over again, I wondered how Don Juan spent his nights in the hospital.