AN APPALLING 'L.I.E.,' TRUTHFULLY TOLD.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

It's been quite a year for movies about unsettling subject matter involving middle-class suburban kids. ``Bully'' charted the reality-based odyssey of sex-and-drug-addled Florida youths who ended up committing group murder. Though gentler and more satirical, ``Ghost World'' pondered the possibility of true love between a middle-aged geek and an idiosyncratic rebel girl.

Now there's ``L.I.E.,'' and its potentially most incendiary plot ploy of all: that a pederast in his 50s can actually have a positive effect on a 15-year-old boy's life.

Quite wisely, director Michael Cuesta and his co-writer Steve Ryder work their way up to this aspect of the story slowly and deliberately, taking care to set up a convincing suburban wasteland (the film's title is the acronym for the Long Island Expressway) before springing the elements that garnered the film an NC-17 rating. As the distributor has complained, that rating has nothing to do with graphic depictions, but more blunt expressions of desire and acknowledgment of moral relativities that operate, to some degree, everywhere in the world.

But for all the filmmakers' careful scene setting and the fine English actor Brian Cox's wise, rueful and usually on-the-prowl performance as the ex-Marine Big John, the movie ultimately falls just short of convincing.

Maybe that's because we all bring prejudices that can't be overcome to a character with Big John's predilections, no matter how compassionately and honestly he's portrayed. Ironically, Cox stole the show when he played the first screen incarnation of supervillain Hannibal Lecter in the movie ``Manhunter''; that monster has gone on to become a beloved pop-culture icon, a status the much more nuanced and humanized Big John could never hope to achieve.

Still, what appalls us appalls us, and first-time feature director Cuesta, remarkably talented and thoughtful as he is, does not yet have what it takes to satisfyingly pull off something this difficult. But then, who does?

Looking past the hot button, we have a fairly standard but realistically presented story of a good kid on the verge of going bad. Howie Blitzer (Paul Franklin Dano, young but a Broadway veteran) is trying to come to terms with the loss of his mother, recently killed in a crash on the expressway. His piggish, contractor dad Marty (Bruce Altman) is no help; he's consumed by wild sex with a new girlfriend and a housing project scandal that has the feds on his trail.

Howie's peers are even more toxic, a pseudo-gang of thrill home burglars. His closest pal Gary (Billy Kay) does provide the closest thing Howie knows to moral support. But Gary is also clearly enamored of his pal, and Howie is about equally alarmed and intrigued by his friend's extra interest.

Gary, of course, knows Big John, and after talking his buddy into breaking into John's home, Howie makes the old perv's acquaintance, too. At first, John is threatening, wanting his stolen trophy guns back (or something of equivalent value, he not so subtly hints, in services). But although he never hides his lust for Howie, as the boy's situation becomes increasingly dire - Gary disappears, Marty's arrested - John is as surprised as anyone to discover he has the moral strength to do what's right: really help the kid get through his tough times with no strings attached. You'll either buy this or you won't, but there's nothing about Cox's poised yet poignant playing that's unconvincing.

Some other things about this one-of-a-kind performance: Besides playing John against type as a robust and respected member of a community that may or may not suspect what he's into, Cox sings what could well be the only truly affecting rendition of ``Danny Boy'' in all of cinema. And when he changes the tape on his fire orange Cutlass 442 from the Marine hymn to opera, it seems like the most natural transition in the world.

``L.I.E.''

(Rated NC-17: sex, language, violence)

The stars: Brian Cox, Paul Franklin Dano, Billy Kay, Bruce Altman.

Behind the scenes: Directed by Michael Cuesta. Written by Michael and Gerald Cuesta and Stephen M. Ryder. Produced by Rene Bastian, Linda Moran and Michael Cuesta. Released by Lot 47 Films.

Running time: One hour, 37 minutes.

Playing: Sunset 5, West Hollywood; Playhouse 7, Pasadena; Monica, Santa Monica; Westside Pavilion, West L.A.

Our rating: Three stars

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Photo:

Billy Kay, left, and Paul Franklin Dano star as troubled, misfit teen boys in ``L.I.E.''