SOLID ACTING, DIRECTION MAKE PREDICTABLE `INDUSTRY' A THRILLER.

Byline: Bob Strauss Daily News Film Critic

The title ``City of Industry'' gives a fair indication of what the movie it's attached to is like: busy, efficient and a little too workmanlike.

It's a crime thriller that's as engrossing as it can be, considering the script by Ken Solarz (who's produced ``Miami Vice'' and other admirable cop shows) doesn't have one unpredictable twist.

Solid acting, halfway interesting characters and John Irvin's swift, straightforward direction are what keep this enterprise humming along.

Lee Egan (Timothy Hutton) and Jorge Montana (Wade Dominguez) head out to Palm Springs in a stolen car, all set to pull a lucrative jewelry heist. The haul is especially critical for Jorge, who's about to go back to prison on a parole violation and needs to provide for his wife, Rachel (Famke Janssen, from ``GoldenEye''), and their two sons.

It's a family thing for Lee, too. His older, semi-retired brother Roy (Harvey Keitel) buses into the Springs from somewhere back east. Then, all three crooks cool their heels while waiting for the wheelman Skip (Stephen Dorff), a belligerent type who has trouble distinguishing between fun and danger, to show up with the guns.

Skip finally arrives, the job goes down and there are, to say the least, complications. Bent on revenge, Roy traces Skip back to the grungier districts of L.A. (a few of which may be in the actual C of I, but not too many I could identify). Both concerned and keyed up, Skip enlists the aid of African-American and Asian gangs to get Roy off his tail. For his part, Roy finds a formidable ally in the recently widowed Rachel.

Different codes of honor among thieves provide the driving theme here. Roy may go around beating and threatening whatever he needs out of people (when he's not just stealing it outright), but at least he has some kind of personal code in comparison to the thoroughly amoral Skip. Roy also recognizes a good woman when he sees one, which gives him a total of one sympathetic characteristic.

Coherence is rarely a quality associated with Irvin's action movies; he's made ``Raw Deal,'' ``Next of Kin'' and ``The Dogs of War,'' all essentially messes. But the British director not only keeps plot points and motivations crystal clear throughout ``City of Industry,'' he stages the movie's escalating violence cleanly and for optimum, realistic impact.

``City'' adroitly avoids the muddle found in most film-industry crime capers. But it does so at the cost of the kind of twists that make a product like this distinctive and truly memorable.

THE FACTS

The film: ``City of Industry'' (R; violence, language, sex, nudity, drug use).

The stars: Harvey Keitel, Stephen Dorff, Famke Janssen, Timothy Hutton, Wade Dominguez.

Behind the scenes: Directed by John Irvin. Written by Ken Solarz. Produced by Solarz and Evzen Kolar. Released by Orion Pictures.

Running time: One hour, 37 minutes.

Playing: Selected theaters.

Our rating: Three Stars.

CAPTION(S):

Photo

Photo: Harvey Keitel stars in the fast-moving ``City of Industry.''