FEW TRACES OF ORIGINALITY TO BE FOUND IN 'MODIGLIANI'.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

THE ITALIAN artist Amedeo Modigliani lived hard, behaved terribly, played head games with Picasso, never made any money and had tuberculosis. He died young, left a brilliant legacy, and now they've made the kind of movie about him that's made about every artist like he was.

It's depressing, but not because the particulars of ``Modigliani'' dictate it be so. Director Mick Davis shows little if any imagination in presenting the troubled genius or the remarkable Montparnasse art scene of the World War I era, and that's the real bummer.

Andy Garcia does his best as the flamboyant, proudly self-defeating and usually stoned painter. But even considering Modigliani's wasted and diseased state, the pushing-50 actor can't quite convince as a guy who flamed out at 36. He just looks too mature to fly into the petty rages that Davis wants us to believe were Modigliani's main calling in life.

Beyond that, there's ominous coughing, lots of tortured relationship stuff with lover/muse/doormat Jeanne Hebuterne (Elsa Zylberstein), and fights with her scandalized father (Jim Carter). The latter's disapproval of the Jewish Amedeo is unpersuasively chalked up more to anti-Semitism then the fact that Modigliani is a horrible influence on Jeanne (she jumped out a window, pregnant with their second child, the day after he died).

As for the milieu, this Romania-shot film gives us the usual take on the usual cast of Parisian art-world characters of the time: expansive Diego Rivera, gay Max Jacob, witty Gertrude Stein ...

The British-Iranian comedian Omid Djalili plays Picasso as a different kind of bastard than he's usually made out to be - this one actually cares about the people he treats abominably - but it's not different enough to save the movie.

There is much smoking and pose-striking in cafes. A midnight walk down a cobblestone street leads to an impromptu dance accompanied by Edith Piaf's ``Ma Vie En Rose,'' like 1,000 other scenes in 1,000 other movies. At one point, Amedeo declares, ``The future of art is in a woman's face!'' - and that's one of the better lines. And I may be wrong, but I just didn't believe his death in 1920 was anywhere near as dramatically orchestrated as this film presents it.

Naturally, the movie is shot in an arty fashion. This sometimes works, but more often it looks like the film was a few stops overexposed in daylight and underexposed in desaturated interiors.

The paintings do look great, though.

Bob Strauss, [phone]

bob.strauss(at)dailynews.com

MODIGLIANI - Two stars

(R: language, substance abuse, violence)

Starring: Andy Garcia, Elsa Zylberstein, Omid Djalili, Udo Kier.

Director: Mick Davis.

Running time: 2 hr. 8 min.

Playing: Selected theaters.

In a nutshell: The tragic, self-destructive rebel artist gets the tragic, self-destructive rebel artist movie treatment. You've seen it before, with different paintings.

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``Modigliani'' explores the life and loves of the flamboyantly self- destructive Italian artist, played by Andy Garcia.