The Dead Zone

As the film opens, Christopher Walken, the patron saint of eccentricity in the movies, is reading out loud Poe's "The Raven" to a classroom of students. It is immediately clear that his will be an enjoyable film. David Cronenberg's "The Dead Zone," from a screenplay by Jeffrey Boam based on Stephen King's novel, is an epic picture, despite its relatively short length of about 103 minutes, and immensely enjoyable to watch.

Walken's character, in that opening classroom, presents himself as a content man with an exaggerated smile; there's no real reason to doubt that most of his students probably like him, and as the audience discovers throughout the film, his character is passionate about education (King was also an English teacher himself before he became a full-time writer). Incidentally, Walken the teacher instructs his students to read "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," and if Christopher Walken could see the future as his character did in "The Dead Zone," he would know that about fifteen years later he would play that very headless demon he refers to.

Walken plays Johnny Smith (a name almost changed by Cronenberg due to its hard-to-believe simplicity). In love with his fellow teacher (Brooke Adams), Smith drives home in a storm and suffers from an accident. He finally awakens in a clinic. It is explained to him by his doctor (Herbert Loam) with dark-brimmed glasses and Polish accent (elaborated on later in the film) that he has been in a coma for five years. His girlfriend has left him, married, and now has a child. He obviously does not have his job anymore and requires physical rehabilitation.

These challenges would be difficult enough for any man, but Johnny discovers that he now has been blessed (or cursed) with the ability to see the future. One day in his hospital bed, he touches the hand of the nurse and suddenly can see that her daughter is in great danger. He shouts to the nurse that there is enough time; the daughter is saved. Johnny's life is completed altered.

Other characters appear in the story to utilize or be affected by Johnny's ability. Tom Skerrit is the local sheriff who has run out of options to find the Castle Rock Killer involving the rape and murder of young women. To the sound of the operatic score of Michael Kamen (one of the rare occasions in which Cronenberg did not use his frequent composer Howard Shore), Johnny helps the police track down the killer. Then there is a politician named Greg Stillson played by Martin Sheen in some of the film's best scenes. Stillson is a character that is the complete antithesis to some of his other characters like the loyal chief of staff in "The American President" and a practical, idealistic president in "The West Wing." He proclaims in a Pentecostal manner that he has a vision that he will one day be president (he played the title role in the miniseries "Kennedy" the same year), and Johnny becomes alarmed at the dangers of such a man and whether his power gives him the responsibility to act against the possible future.

Cronenberg's films are not usually scary so much as highly stylized, as is the case here (the exception is "The Fly," which manages to succeed in both aspects). Walken is effective from the beginning; his performance shows a man shifting from states of fright, command and anger, and he does so at complete ease. Not as accoladed as his performance in "The Deer Hunter" or as oft-quoted as his role in "Pulp Fiction," Walken's role in "The Dead Zone" is terrific and certainly one of his best performances.