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Heralding Edward Norton's directorial debut, Keeping The Faith is a slightly amusing tale of two childhood friends — a Catholic Priest and a Rabbi — who find themselves fighting over their female muse, a girl they haven't seen since the 8th grade.

Consideration of its direction reveals Keeping The Faith to be an unremarkable film, suggesting that Norton has been allowed to indulge himself in an activity he is not well-suited to. Recall that the majority of his acting roles have seen him pretend to be something he is not, be it a bullied choir boy (Primal Fear (Gregory Hoblit, 1996)), a highly aggressive pseudo-disabled thief (The Score (Frank Oz, 2001)) or a schizophrenic dweeb (Fight Club (David Fincher, 1999)). Such training, however, doesn't lend itself readily to direction, where one has to have a clear identity of what is to be achieved, and perhaps more importantly how it is to be achieved. So, where George Clooney in Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind (2002) managed a reasonable, stylish film, a viewer can consider that the result of his very reasonable, stylish acting skills.

Norton, perhaps, is best-suited to production, leaving his fingerprint where his now considerable reputation allows him to wield power, and — more ideally — allowing him to concentrate on the area where his real skill lies: his acting.

Directed by Edward Norton • imdb and amazon

Tags — Film