ELEGANT 'RASPUTIN' FLAWED BY UNEVEN ACTING.

Byline: Ray Richmond

While it features a wonderfully campy performance of scenery-chewing by Alan "Sense and Sensibility" Rickman in the title role, "Rasputin" (9 p.m. Saturday on HBO) isn't the kind of film many people are likely to stay home for on an otherwise exciting weekend night.

It is also a fact that most people don't really even know who Rasputin is, which tends to bode ill for a biographical film. Hint: He wasn't related to Rapunzel of "Oh Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your golden hair!" fame.

Now that we've cleared up that confusing little piece of business, understand that "Rasputin" is mostly a long day's journey into death - the death being the ultimate execution of Czar Nicholas II of Russia of "Nicholas and Alexandra" fame.

Nick is exceptionally well-played by the phenomenal Ian McKellen, and Greta Scacchi lends captivating support as Alexandra.

Which brings us back to Rasputin. For the uninitiated, he was a mystical type who today would make for a great plot line on "The X-Files." He worms his way into the good graces of Czarina Alexandra by performing what appears to be a miracle on her hemophiliac son, and she campaigns to have him stick around as a member of the czar's court.

But no one ever figures out if Raspy was a true miracle man or merely your basic charlatan. And as played by the bellowing Rickman, he comes across as a bombastic bear of a man with a kind heart but an opportunist's soul.

Too often, however, Rickman is strained and extreme, bouncing off the palace walls with all the subtlety of shattering china. At least "Rasputin" is sumptuously produced, its period details elegant and impressive.

Don't blink, your eyeliner might run: Sonia Jacobs has been in prison for 15 years, but it doesn't seem to have hurt her appearance. She looks fabulous - her makeup just right, her hair clean and bright, her prison denims sleek and fashionable.

Sonia is, for all intents and purposes, a babe. She is the epitome of inmate chic.

This fact has both everything and nothing to do with "In the Blink of an Eye," an ABC TV movie airing at 9 p.m. Sunday on KABC (Channel 7) that's said to be based "on actual events."

The docudrama is supposed to be the heartwarming tale of two women - who were pals as kids but have lost touch - reconnected as adults when one of them, a filmmaker named Micki Dickoff (Veronica Hamel), discovers that the other, Sonia (Mimi Rogers), has been in prison for years for the shooting death of two cops, driving her apart from her family.

Micki puts her life on hold to fight for Sonia, believing she was wrongly convicted. This is more or less cool with Sonia, except that the few glimpses we see of her life behind bars seem to indicate that she kind of likes it there.

And talk about a looker. To look at Sonia, you'd swear that this is one federal penitentiary that specializes in makeovers. Any second, you expect her to tell Micki, "Hey, thanks for fighting for me. But I gotta tell ya, this joint is my own personal Club Med. Go save someone else, will you please?".

So, anyhow, things wind up going pretty well in the case-reopening department. Seems a whole lot of folks lied way back when to railroad Sonia and her just-executed husband. And now, it's payback time. Hamel is good at eliciting outrage at the system and compassion for everything she stands for. And Rogers is adept at looking benign.

It doesn't help that "In the Blink of an Eye" overdoes it on the sappy music and overwrought plot devices, turning an inspiring story of justice delayed into a grandiose soap opera driven by utter predictability - and cosmetics.

THE FACTS

The film: "Rasputin."

When: 9 p.m. Saturday.

Channel: HBO.

Starring: Alan Rickman, Greta Scacchi and Ian McKellen.

Our rating: B-

The film: "In the Blink of an Eye."

When: 9 p.m. Sunday.

Channel: KABC (Channel 7).

Starring: Veronica Hamel, Mimi Rogers and Carlos Gomez.

Our rating: B-

CAPTION(S):

PHOTO

Photo Mimi Rogers, left, and Veronica Hamel star in "In the Blink of an Eye," at 9 p.m. Sunday on KABC (Channel 7).