Film: Videowatch

Apt Pupil (15), to rent

A GENUINE oddity from director Bryan Singer, who sank almost without trace after the critical and commercial success of The Usual Suspects. In the mid-Eighties, Todd (Brad Renfro), a bright but introspective teenager, improbably ascertains that a few streets from him lives an undiscovered ageing Nazi war criminal, Kurt Dussander (Ian McKellen). Having blackmailed Dussander into recounting his war deeds, Todd finds to his cost that the former SS officer's talent for manipulative evil has stood the test of time.

This being a Stephen King adaptation, much is made of the suburban banality of Dussander. Moreover, Singer and writer Brandon Boyce forego an obvious moral battle between Todd and the old man. Dussander's past isn't the issue, here - Dussander goose-stepping in a Nazi uniform and his attempt to cook a local cat are efforts, clumsy though they are, to satirise Todd's obsession. Singer hints instead at a consuming small-town depravity. Neither lead particularly engages your sympathies - Dussander's spite has a life of its own and Todd's cute-as-a-button face is animated only by self-interest. Meanwhile, his parents and school counsellor are ignorant of Todd's problems - in other words, there's no one to come to Todd's, or our, rescue.

The film goes awry with the murder of a tramp, but otherwise this is at least interesting, if not always good.