Powder (1995)

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Jessie Caldwell	Mary Steenburgen	½
Jeremy 'Powder' Reed	Sean Patrick Flanery	½
Sheriff Doug Barnum	Lance Henriksen	½
Donald Ripley	Jeff Goldblum
Deputy Harley Duncan	Brandon Smith	½
John Box	Bradford Tatum
Maxine	Susan Tyrrell
Lindsey Kelloway	Missy Crider

Review

The writer/director is called Victor Salva and was to make the unimpressive horror film Jeepers Creepers a few years after this film. In Powder he shows clear signs of creativity and inquisitiveness, even if many of the scenes he chooses are banal and simplified. Had they been more intrinsic Powder could have had a real value as both a sociological and psychological study. Instead, this film remains a half-cooked suggestion of what could have been – something which probably goes for both this film and the filmmaker himself. What starts out as an insight into the unknown, with close to endless potential, eventually turns out into spiritual masturbation in the film's least considerate segments as the title character discovers his infinite goodness in a world of malice. Sean Patrick Flanery is far too old for the part, but still the most apt of the film's personnel. The performances by the more renowned actors are uneven at best. As the psychologist, Mary Steenburgen is so sensitive that she's hardly able to speak, and as the fascinated teacher, Jeff Goldblum is charismatic but completely full of himself.