'LEVITY' QUITE A LEAP FOR 'BILL & TED'S' WRITER.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

WHENEVER the dour drama ``Levity'' threatens to become too painfully biblical, an intriguing character quirk or outburst of the title quality brings the proceedings back down to earth. This doesn't alleviate the feeling that this modest production with a flashy cast is heavily overdetermined, but it does save the movie from writer-director Ed Solomon's more solemn impulses.

Yes, you read that right. The screenwriter of ``Men in Black'' and ``Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure'' opted to get serious for his directing debut.

Solomon still has a way to go before he achieves fully conceived human characters for the screen. But ``Levity'' marks a decent start.

When the parables aren't too intrusive, anyway.

Billy Bob Thornton plays Manual Jordan under a white, Jesus-length mane and perpetual cloud of rueful disorientation.

Manual has spent his whole adult life in prison for killing a teenage convenience store clerk. He genuinely feels bad about the crime, so even when his sentence is commuted after 23 years of good behavior, all he wants to do is somehow make amends.

Reluctantly sprung, Manual wants to do something helpful for Adele Easley (Holly Hunter), the sister of the boy he killed and now the single mother of her own trouble-headed teen. Contact is made, but Manual can't bring himself to reveal his true identity before something complicated grows between them.

Manual also finds himself helping an eccentric storefront preacher, Morgan Freeman's Miles Evans, in exchange for room and board. Miles offers free, safe parking to the suburban kids who come to the underground nightclub across the street, providing they listen to 15 minutes of his profanity-laced sermonizing first. And Manual takes an interest in the self-destructive party girl Sofia (Kirsten Dunst) who passes out regularly within his sphere of influence.

As everyone's personal crises build toward conveniently simultaneous heads, Manual discovers that redemption is not as easy as one would hope, but can also occur in a variety of unexpected ways. It's a sweet and well-worn notion, but one that, in ``Levity,'' places individuals' small epiphanies ahead of cosmic significance. That makes whatever failings this dreary, sometimes fussy film has worth forgiving.

LEVITY - Three stars

(R: violence, drug use, language, sex)

Starring: Billy Bob Thornton, Morgan Freeman, Holly Hunter, Kirsten Dunst, Luke Robertson.

Director: Ed Solomon.

Running time: 1 hr. 40 min.

Playing: Pacific Galleria Stadium 16, Sherman Oaks; UA Marketplace, Pasadena; Laemmle Sunset 5, West Hollywood; Laemmle Music Hall, Beverly Hills.

In a nutshell: Sometimes tortured redemption parable eventually succeeds at turning its characters into more than symbols.