AIDS DRAMA INDUCES WRONG KIND OF TEARS.

Byline: David Kronke TV Critic

HARD TO BELIEVE IT, but the AIDS melodrama is now 17 years old. It began with 1986's ``Parting Glances,'' starring a then-unknown Steve Buscemi (it was the only film writer/director Bill Sherwood would make, himself succumbing to the disease). In 1990, ``Longtime Companion'' broke through to the mainstream, making sense of the epidemic in terms both subtle and manipulative and earning Bruce Davison an Oscar nomination.

By contrast, ``And the Band Played On,'' based on Randy Shilts' 1987 breakthrough book on the epidemic, wasn't made into an HBO film until 1993, when the AIDS film had become virtually become its own genre.

It's been a while, in fact, since an American filmmaker has attempted to wring tears from an AIDS story. This is no doubt in part due to its descent from the nation's radar - Magic Johnson, our most celebrated patient, is gratifyingly alive and well, so how bad, we wonder, can it really be? - but it's also because the genre achieved endgame early on. With the inevitable weepy finale, sundry emotional rapprochements and maudlin musical score all but a given, how many of these movies does any one person have to see?

Which is the dilemma confronting ``Behind the Red Door,'' a film directed and co-written (with C.W. Cressler) by Matia Karrell that attempts to emerge as unique by grafting on a vague murder mystery and a tale of sibling rivalry. Alas, the result is just as one might expect.

Kyra Sedgwick - who, with this, her current film ``Personal Velocity'' and a resume that includes ``Singles'' and ``Born on the Fourth of July,'' emerges as the go-to actress when you want bitterly sardonic cynicism - stars as Natalie, a struggling photographer whose agent (Stockard Channing, without whom it's simply not a cutting-edge gay-themed TV movie) lands her a cushy gig. But Natalie's ready to walk away from 20 grand for two days' work because the client is her estranged, eminently bitchy brother Roy (Kiefer Sutherland), a perfectionist control freak who runs an ad agency and navigates his way around designer clothing and wicked bon mots with equal aplomb.

For the film's first 20 minutes, every exchange between Sutherland and Sedewick insists on mentioning that they're brother and sister, just in case we have somehow missed that. They're all not-too-misleadingly contentious, as well, because we know Natalie's going to come around and care for her brother in his final days. For a smidgen of misdirection, the possibility that their father may or may not have murdered their mother is floated, like a trial balloon, as a suggestion that the film may have other things on its mind.

But, no, it really doesn't. Sutherland, whose character has surrounded himself with aggravatingly pretentious sorts, does snotty attitude really well, channeling Joan Crawford while shooting withering darts at all around him with a deliciously understated sneer. Sedgwick pours an equal amount of commitment into her psychically battered character as well, but in the end they're simply betrayed by the portentous script.

``You think God will let me into his kingdom? I'd let him into mine if he'd ask,'' Roy, after an apparent entire lifetime of indulging in elitist claptrap, intones with misplaced righteousness at one point. But when David Fleury's watery piano theme tinkles as Roy describes snow lighting on the ocean - ``It's as if each individual flake has its own voice, a hiss as it hits the water, and then this whisper that tames the ocean's roar tastefully'' - you're ready for the roar of the bilge that is Karrell and Cressler's script to be tamed, tastefully or with extreme prejudice.

And of course, just as the two are cozying to one another, right on schedule Roy has an irrational outburst that challenges their relationship anew and gives the film a faux dramatic oomph for another half-hour. Which doesn't prevent, naturally, Natalie from singing him home.

``Behind the Red Door'' plays at times, despite the principals' best intentions, like high camp; elsewhere it feels grossly manipulative. If you're so inclined, the leads' performances may carry you to its requisite conclusion. If not, then there's less sentimental fare just about everywhere else, even the Lifetime Channel.

BEHIND THE RED DOOR - Two stars

What: Kiefer Sutherland stars as a man dying of AIDS; his estranged sister (Kyra Sedgwick) cares for him in his last days.

Where: Showtime.

When: 8 tonight; also 10 p.m. Monday, Jan. 22, 25 and 28.

In a nutshell: Despite strong performances, its earnest sensitivity is worse than anything Jack Bauer had to contend with on ``24.''

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Photo:

Kiefer Sutherland is an AIDS sufferer running an ad agency, Kyra Sedgwick, left, is a photographer and his sister, and Stockard Channing is her agent in ``Behind the Red Door.''