Chaplin.

No one can say that Charles Chaplin isn't the one and only hero of Richard Attenborough's Chaplin. He's not only the hero; he's virtually the only thing in the movie. There aren't any other characters, only the mannequins whose function is to evoke some show of emotion from The Great Man. Brother and business manager Sydney is always around urging Charlie to be cautious, to betray his art for the sake of profit. But the Great Man always defies the voice of caution and remains true to himself and his art. Douglas Fairbanks is brought to brief, dazzling life by splendid Kevin Kline only to turn into a has-been so that Charlie can show compassion. The various wives and mistresses all put in three-minute appearances just to evoke our hero's kindness and/or frustrated longings. Only John Thaw (Inspector Morse on PBS's "Mystery") as music hall impresario Fred Kamo seems to have an existence apart from Chaplin's, partly because Thaw is first-rate but mainly because Kamo' s ego was as massive as the young genius he hired.

The movie's shallowness is fully revealed in its treatment of the second wife, Lita Grey. When the editor of Chaplin's autobiography asks Charlie why he has said so little about Lita, the reply is, "Because I detested the little bitch." And that's that. Attenborough seems never to have asked himself what there was in this woman that left Chaplin speechless in his enmity so many years after the marriage. If he had, he might have had to create scenes in which a real man faced off against a real woman. But Attenborough isn't interested in testing his hero; he's too busy genuflecting before him. Robert Downey Jr., who does at least as well as Jack Nicholson in capturing the physical characteristics of his assignment, ends up giving a skillful performance not of a genius but of an endlessly forbearing melancholic.

Charles Chaplin would have loved this movie. That's what is wrong with it. RICHARD ALLEVA