A Conversation with Filmmaker Matthew Harrison KICKED IN THE HEAD
by Michael McCarthy, CineZine Subj: C I N (( E )) Z I N E, Sun, Sep 28, 1997.

SPECIAL FEATURE: KICKED IN THE HEAD: A CONVERSATION WITH MATTHEW HARRISON

I recently had the pleasure of attending the U.S. premiere of writer/director Matthew Harrison's third film, Kicked in the Head, at the Boston Film Festival. Just listening to his introduction, it seemed evident that Harrison is someone more than a bit passionate about filmmaking. This was confirmed during the Q&A session he hosted after the film. While each of the Q&A sessions I'd attended during the course of the festival was interesting enough, there was something different about Harrison. Something inspiring about the way he spoke about films. Something that made me want to talk to him. I introduced myself and an interview was promptly set for 10:30 the following morning.

You may find it surprising to know that the interview took place in just over forty-five minutes. Forty-five minutes of fast-paced, rapid fire conversation. I point this out as further evidence of the excitement Harrison possesses for filmmaking because it's the same excitement--that same enthusiasm--which shines through Kicked in the Head. An enthusiasm I've not witnessed since, well, the first time I caught a television interview with Quentin Tarantino just before Pulp Fiction was released. The comparisons, however, must stop there. As you're about to learn, Harrison is an original.

MM: First of all, I understand your last film garnered you a lot of praise.

MH: My second feature was a picture called RHYTHM THIEF about a music bootlegger. That won the Jury Prize at Sundance in ‘95. It got picked up and we had a release in the U.S. and Europe. That got even more critical acclaim than my first film, Spare Me. The important thing with Rhythm Thief is that Martin Scorsese saw a copy of it when he was shooting Casino in Vegas. He liked it very much. He called me on the phone and that's how Kicked in the Head came to be.

MM: How did it get to him?

MH: An agent named Paul Schwartzman, who's not my agent, oddly enough, but just a really bright guy. He thought Marty would like it. He made sure that he got a tape.

MM: Have Rhythm Thief or Spare Me been released on video in the United States?

MH: Rhythm Thief is coming out on video at the end of November on Strand Releasing. I did my own release for Spare Me. It's in video stores in L.A. and New York. I've got to make sure it gets into some video stores in Boston.

MM: Was Kicked in the Head with October Films to begin with or did they acquire it later?

MH: They were really interested in SPARE ME, and then I didn't give them RHYTHM THIEF, but they wanted to be involved in that. Something told me we had to do it ourselves so I could have total control. And we did. Then they said, "We really want to work with you." I had some other companies that did, too. Marty and Barbara and all that happened and when we were drawing up a list of all the different companies to go to, October was on that list. They talked to a couple different companies but October was the most enthusiastic. So it went to them. They really became involved from the get go. It was their cash. The movie belongs to them.

MM: Martin Scorsese's credit is executive producer. What was his involvement once the wheels were set in motion?

MH: Marty was really helpful in the casting, which is critical for a film. I mean, that's how a film gets made, really. And he was very helpful in assembling the crew. He wanted to know who the cameraman was, etcetera. But Marty was very hands off, which was great. I would ask him, "Marty, what should I do about this?" He would say, "Well, you do what you want. You're gonna know what you want to do. Just think about it and do it." And then when we were cutting the film, he gave me notes on that. Places where he thought we could adjust things. Kevin and I had given ourselves options at each different section. We knew we would need to have some. So, that was great feedback from him.

MM: Where there instances where you'd filmed actual alternate versions of scenes?

MH: Yeah. Like places where things were really turning around for Redmond. We did a version that went very much this way and a version that went very much, emotionally, that way. Then we kind of balanced things out. So, when Marty said, "The scene where Linda tells him to leave, I think you went a little too far with Redmond getting upset. Can you back off on that one?" We said, "Yeah. Kevin and I shot a version where we kind of changed his experience." He's a little cooler about it.

The other place where Marty was really helpful was at Canne. The picture had its world premiere. Marty really introduced us to Canne and introduced the film to the international filmmaking set. People said, "Mr. Scorsese, why are you here at Canne?" And he said, "Well, I'm here at Canne with Kundun and Kicked in the Head and this is Kevin Corrigan and Matthew Harrison." That was great, you know? He really was our godfather there at Canne. He's my mentor.

MM: Bruce Williamson of Playboy said "Martin Scorsese produced Kicked in the Head, which means you certainly have talent"--

MH: --You saw that in Playboy?

MM: Yeah. Just read it this morning.

MH: [Excited] Two and a half bunnies! He didn't get the Hindenberg thing though, which was surprising to me. Bruce . . . it's a metaphor! Metaphor!

MM: He's not a bad critic though.

MH: Yeah. Don't put him down.

MM: The thing that I didn't get is that he gave you two and a half bunnies, but when I read the actual review it sounded like he was giving you three and a half.

MH: Yeah, I know, man. Where was the missing bunny?

MM: That's why we don't do a rate system with Cinezine. It gives critics the opportunity to be lazy. If their review doesn't quite capture how they felt about a film, they can just give it an extra star or take one away. The stars often don't match up with their words.

MH: Yeah, that's true, huh? This film rotted, but he gives it three and half stars.

MM: What Williamson's comment about Scorcese made me wonder is if you feel people might expect too much from you because of his involvement?

MH: I recently got a list of like 40 magazine critics. I noticed all these names of heavyweight people and I'm like, what the fuck? This is really not appropriate because this film is for younger people. I think the senior critic said, "Oh, here's the Martin Scorsese one, I'm gonna take that one." The junior critic said, "But I want to do it." But the senior's like, "No, no, no, I'm gonna do it." And then they go in there like, "OK, I'm gonna take Marty down a notch." I'm like, man, that was a bad move on the PR firm. They've been sending stuff out with Martin Scorsese in big letters across the top like, "This is great, isn't it? We're gonna get you some press." I don't think that's such a good idea, you know? I remember Marty saying that to me once. He said, "A lot of people might come gunning for you because of my name." I was like, "Well, what the fuck, I don't give a shit."

MM: This is the first time you've had significant money to play with and "stars." Did it feel different making this film, like making a debut again?

MH: Yeah, it kind of did, but I tried to really avoid that. I tried to downplay things a little bit. I think that's why sometimes the script takes a left turn when you might expect it to take a right. It has more important things to do. I'm continuing to make films. I've got to be true to myself.

MM: Kicked in the Head takes place in Manhattan's Lower East Side. Was it filmed entirely on location as it appears to have been?

MH: That film was entirely on location, the Lower East Side streets that I knew. The building where Stretch lives, I lived in that building in that same apartment. The scene where they're eating Chinese food--that's the table where Kevin and I wrote the script. So, that's all authentic. And the streets around those projects are where Redmond was walking. That's where we shot them.

MM: So, you had the specific streets in mind when you wrote the script?

MH: Absolutely. Like the bagel shop where he steals the car in the beginning--that's all the six block radius from where Stretch lives. It's all the same area.

MM: Did you encounter resistance from the producers and such in regards to filming on location in New York as opposed to going to Canada?

MH: Marty and Barbara [De Fina] said, "Where do you see this?" At first they were like, "What are you talking about? We know this great building in so and so and we know these other great streets in so and so." I was just like, "No, no." And I kept pushing for these locations. Kevin and I took my little video camera and we just did a walk of the whole neighborhood that we'd written the screenplay about and gave them the videotape. They all went, "Whoa, OK, hey, it's done." It worked out really well.

MM: You co-wrote the script with actor Kevin Corrigan. What's the background there?

MH: Jason Andrews, the guy who plays the lead in Rhythm Thief, introduced us. Kevin grew up in the Bronx and I grew up in downtown New York City. We just hit it off. We spoke a lot of the same language and we had a lot of the same experiences growing up. That was exciting. I started thinking I wanted to come up with an idea for a film he could play the lead in. And after we shot Rhythm Thief, he was going through this break up with his girlfriend and he'd run out of money again and lost his apartment. He would talk to me for hours about how he felt. It brought me back to that feeling of being in your early 20s, mid 20s, where it feels like you're doing everything wrong. Everybody says you're a fucking loser, you know? "Get your fucking life together." You're trying so hard, but none of it seems to be working. It was so vivid listening to Kevin talk about it. It just made it so clear again because he's a really emotional person and you can see everything in his face. I kept telling the cameramen and the art people--everybody on Kicked in the Head--all we got to do is get Kevin's face. That's the movie.

MM: What was it like directing him after he'd written the script with you? Did either of you show up and find that the other had decided some things should change and disagree?

MH: Like any relationship, in the beginning of a film, you have to have your blow up. I think it must have been the second or third day. You just have to do it, get it out of the way, and then it's cool. But a lot of that was just creative tension. There's a lot of trust. We shot a short film recently. We talked about the idea and worked on it for a little while over the phone. When we actually came together to shoot it, we didn't talk. I had some ideas about how I wanted to shoot it, but I didn't explain it to him. He obviously had ideas about how he was going to do this guy and I left him alone. I feel really lucky to be working with somebody like him who cares so much about the work. He puts so much of himself into it. He's not afraid to just completely be vulnerable and bear his soul. He's a man who has the strength to do that and you don't find that very often.

MM: Was there a certain past performance of Linda Fiorentino's that inspired you to cast her as Megan?

MH: Actually, no. I didn't watch Last Seduction until, oddly enough, the wheels were already in motion. I had seen her in Desperate Trail. For some weird reason, I taped that off HBO. It's not a particularly good film, but I thought she did some great things in that. Mostly, it was here are some people on a list--actresses that I went over, Marty went over, Barbara went over, October went over--and then we said, OK, let's start. Then the script goes out. It's really about who is going to respond to the material. What's the point in talking to somebody unless they really respond? Linda came right away and was like, "I really like this. I want to do this." Then I looked at Last Seduction and was like, whoa! I could see why she really wanted to do this because a lot of what she did in that part parallels.

MM: It was nice to see her play a character that wasn't the typical bitch role she usually gets. Now, of course, Kevin Smith has cast her as the lead in Dogma as a twenty three year old abortion clinic worker.

MH: She's going to play a twenty three year old abortion worker?

MM: I don't remember the character's exact age, but I remember picturing her as twentysomething when I read the script. I imagine he's probably going to--

MH: --Bring the age up a little bit.

MM: Yeah. But still.

MH: Yeah. That's cool. What I think was interesting about Megan in this script was that she's a woman who was kind of living like that, who's maybe kind of changing. Maybe it's the beginning of some kind of break from that part for her.

MM: Was there any fear directing James Woods where he's a friend of Marty? Like he might call him up and ask him what he got him into?

MH: No, Jimmy was cool. That happened really quickly. We were struggling with casting Uncle Sam and one day Barbara called me up and said, "Hey, Matt, what about James Woods?" I was like, "Oh my god, why didn't we think of that before? That's brilliant." And she said, "OK, go meet him today." I went there and he said, "I'm not doing a lot of pictures anymore. I'm only picking a couple good films a year. I read two good scripts, your script and Rob Reiner's. I want to do it." We talked and got a feeling for each other. He said, "Do you mind improvisation in it?" I said, "No, not at all. Uncle Sam can just talk as much as he wants." He said, "Well, hey, have them make the offer today." They did it and he came on.

MM: What was he like on the set?

MH: Jimmy really likes to work. He loves to be involved in it. Linda was like the opposite. Linda was like, "Don't worry guys. I've got it all figured out. I'm gonna be in my trailer. Call me when everything's ready to go. I'm gonna come out, I'm gonna do it, and I'm gonna go back in." But Jimmy was like, "Hey, what are we doing? What's this? What do you guys think of the coffee?" He wants to hang out. You know, it was funny because on the set he ended up doing hardly any improvisation. At first he was fucking around, but as the days went by he just stopped. Completely. He would start tinkering around and then, without me ever having to say anything, he'd realize, "Oh, wait a second, I can't change this word in the script because that ties to this and that."

MM: Michael Rapaport is absolutely hilarious in the role of Stretch. A real scene stealer. Was his fast-talking dialogue improvised?

MH: That was all written. But the thing with Mike was that he's a friend of Kevin and I. Mike really wanted a part in Rhythm Thief, but he came a bit too late. So, Mike was somebody who Kevin and I decided we wanted to write a part for from the beginning. Mike would come to the apartment and fuck around, talking about his character, and they'd mess around. Mike walked around the room and went, "This is my house! My house!" And he said, "I want him to water the plants. I want him to water the plants. And I want him to be over here in the kitchen telling Redmond everything about life and how he should do it." You know, the way he gets into that one spot and is like, "It's gonna be like this, it's gonna be like this, it's gonna be like this."

MM: He's always asking everybody, "You got a drinking problem?" It's very funny, but a true to life sort of mannerism just the same. What was the inspiration there?

MH: That line was used in a short film I did called Two Boneheads. This friend of mind, David Furor, should get credit for that. I remember we had a scene and that wasn't in the script. They're talking about a friend who got drunk the night before. One of them says, "Yeah, his wife is leaving him." And he says, "Why? Because of his drinking problem?" [Both laugh] He had just met the guy and the guy was drunk. It became this sort of mantra we would all repeat. It just kind of found its way into this script.

MM: What is your reasoning for Redmond keeping the cocaine, lying about it, and then not even telling the truth about the shoot out, which he could have used to make his lie believable?

MH: There's that family thing where Uncle Sam says he's family and Kevin says, "I can't do this. I really can't. It's just impossible. The worst thing for you to do is ask me to do something for you right now, Uncle Sam." But Uncle Sam just presses it and gives him very specific orders, "You come back to me and you say I delivered the bag to the guy, Uncle Sam. You do not come and say you didn't deliver the bag." And that's exactly what he does. The fact that he actually didn't do it is almost unrelated. It's like, he told his uncle he couldn't do this thing and his uncle insisted on pressing it on him anyway. So, at that point, in Redmond's warped logic, it's like, well, you know what, that's his problem. Families go out of whack in that way. You're always going through the motions in your family. I was trying to show that Redmond's reaching this crisis point within his. He's got to break away from them and he's having a hard time doing it. I tried to give that as much attention as I could.

MM: What really makes it work later on is when you realize that Redmond is a walking contradiction at this point in his life. He's going out of his way to make his situation more complicated even though he says he just wants to find the truth and so forth.

MH: Right. He hasn't learned that the easiest way to deflate all this is by telling everyone exactly what happened. The real conclusion we need is Jack saying, "Your family is a fuck up. Your brother was shot. Your father's missing." It's like this pathology. Redmond is the youngest son and without knowing it he's begun to take on all these things, too. He's becoming his father. He's becoming his brother. He's becoming his uncle.

MM: And his friend Stretch has already become one of them.

MH: Yeah. He says right away, "No drugs. Unless you share them with me." And in the next scene, he's doing drugs. "No pussy except for Pearl." And it's like, you know, pussy is everywhere. [Both laugh] "And no guns except for special circumstances like what we've got here." And he's shooting right away. Redmond showing up is the last little straw that unleashes Stretch.

MM: Redmond and Stretch seem as though they'd be better off with a little less superstition in their minds whereas Megan and Uncle Sam seem as though they'd benefit from some. Was that a theme you were deliberately trying to put forth?

MH: Yeah. I think so. I think that's actually a really great way of putting it. The fortune cookie, you know? That moment in life when you're always like, oh, that fucking horoscope, I never read it, that's all bullshit. But then there's that one moment where something's going on and you open up your horoscope and you're like, that's exactly right! You realize the power of that kind of thing. Like that moment where Megan is listening to Redmond. She hears him say that [she's his angel] and it's like she's heard those words before. Either she said them to somebody or somebody she really loved said them to her a long time ago. It all comes together and it just unlocks something in her. I think that's really true. Like she could use a little more of that. She's denying all those things. And certainly Uncle Sam because Uncle Sam's like, ah, forget it, that's bullshit. That's very observant.

MM: Despite all the shooting, nobody ever gets shot. Was it always that way in the script?

MH: That was a combination of things. Kevin and I wrote an earlier draft that was designed to be made for a very small budget. It didn't have the car. It didn't have the shoot out. He just took him to the beer distributor and left. I added the hoopla to demonstrate the ludicrousness of some of that. If we're gonna blow up Redmond's fears, let's really blow them up. Let's literally blow them up. Then, as we were planning it and storyboarding the action sequences, I saw them beginning to make the list and say, "OK, we need this much blood." I thought, blood? How much blood are we gonna need? They were like, "Oh, we're gonna need 10 gallons of this kind of blood and 30 gallons of this kind of blood." I was thinking . . . Something told me I shouldn't have blood on that set. And I think it was better for the film.

MM: What inspired the Hindenberg footage that you've inserted in different places throughout the film?

MH: I was always interested in the Titanic when I was a kid and Kevin was really interested in the Challenger. I've noticed that there's a certain age when kids start to get really interested in big disasters. They become obsessed with the Titanic. They want to talk about all the people who died. I proposed to Kevin that we should have Redmond be interested in a disaster. For a while we were thinking of the Challenger, but then I said, Kev, what about the Hindenberg, because it's a pretty amazing visual. The flipbook is what did it, when I said how about the flipbook? You play it over and over. There's that point in your life where that disaster seems to become solace. But then you realize every fucking day I pick up this Hindenberg flipbook, I look at it, and I get a jolt of that feeling. And, you know what, I can take that Hindenberg book and put it in a fucking drawer, close the drawer, and I wouldn't have to feel that everyday. But you don't figure that out until you're a little older.

MM: Was it expensive to license the crash footage?

MH: Actually, no. That's public. We own it. It's in the national archieves. It was difficult tracking down what was closest to the original footage. The government actually has several different versions of it. I think there were six cameras there that day and they have footage from a few of them. A lot of it was kind of chopped up and dispersed at different places. So, it was difficult finding that. That was expensive, but not too expensive.

MM: Well, it was certainly worth it.

MH: I think this is the best screening of the Hindenberg because it was really a struggle for us to get closer to the negative. I don't think anyone ever got as close to the negative as we did.

MM: Plus, you're putting it on the big screen.

MH: Yeah. I saw it in In the Hindenberg with George C. Scott. They didn't get as close to the negative as we got. Ours looks better. You can see stuff on the big screen. If you watch, you can see people jumping. It's amazing shit.

MM: Did the footage appear in the script where it appears in the film or did you just figure out where it would work best in the editing process?

MH: The one place that I didn't have in the script, which came to the movie in the editing room, was the way I start the film with that news reel footage. Otherwise, the first time we saw it was when he has the flipbook and people didn't know what it was. This helped set it up. I also just like the way it starts out. It's almost like Citizen Kane. [Laughs] Our bizarre little tip of the hat to Orson. [Both laugh]

MM: I understand you didn't go to film school. That said, how did you learn the basic mechanics of directing?

MH: By making a lot of movies, mostly. I just consume a lot of information about making film. It's amazing how much you can learn from books about a lot of excellant directors and by watching their films really carefully. The mechanics of making film? There are a lot of people out there who are way better at it than I ever will be. Assistant directors, cameramen, you know? My job really is to keep us on track emotionally, which is very hard to teach. One of the first people to really tell me I was on the right track was Martin Scorsese. I used to go to different seminars and hear people talk. I always felt like, oh man, I'm really an idiot, I don't know all this stuff, I'm doing it all wrong.

MM: He gave you that grand stamp of approval.

MH: Yeah. The great thing was he told me, "You've been going about it the right way. You're onto the right shit. You're onto the shit that really matters." I'm not a filmmaker who follows. When I was young I realized the only thing I could ever do is build my own culture. My own little world. Matthew Harrison's world. I started making films in 1969 when I was nine years old. There were lots of clues in Kicked in the Head that relate back to films that I made in the early 70s, mid 70s and the early 80s. People who know my work understand the little clues and the messages. I try to balance that out by making my work as accessible as possible to everybody so that I can have a wider audience, but I also realize the thing I can really give to people is to be completely true to myself as an artist, as a filmmaker, because if I'm not you can feel it in the work. I view that as a commitment. It's really hard to keep, actually. There's a lot of pressure.

MM: What are your expectations and hopes for Kicked in the Head?

MH: Kevin and I really made this film for all the Redmonds out there in the world. All the young men and women who feel like that. So they could feel like they're not alone. It's pretty damn funny when you go through that stuff and then you look back and realize, oh my god, I went to her house and tried to climb up to her window and the trellis broke. You know, those moments, you say, what was I doing? [Laughs] I think that's my hope, that they all get to see Redmond, everyone who's felt like that and people who remember what that was like. I just hope that everybody who needs to see it gets to see it.

"You'll get your kicks with KICKED IN THE HEAD"
by Paul Tatara , CNN September 17, 1997.

Web posted at: 11:32 p.m. EDT (0332 GMT) From Reviewer Paul Tatara

(CNN) -- The first 45 minutes of Matthew Harrison's new comedy, "Kicked in the Head," is the loosest, fastest, funniest stuff I've seen all year.

There's an intentional slapdash quality to the adventures of Redmond (Kevin Corrigan, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Harrison) as he ambles aimlessly through Manhattan's Lower East Side, trying to find some connection, any connection, to the world he's inhabiting. Redmond, whining and gasping in fear every step of the way, is a guy on the verge of a psychotic meltdown who still somehow manages to believe that his perils are the venue through which he will find "the truth."

What there is of a plot is set in motion when his shyster Uncle Sam (James Woods, somewhat engaging for the first time since "Casino") gives him a paper bag containing a brick of cocaine that he needs to deliver to a guy on 62nd Street, but there's a shootout, and Redmond, (thoroughly panicked, but that's how he operates throughout the film), ends up taking the coke with him.

He's been evicted from his apartment, which burned down that morning anyway, so he winds up crashing on the couch at his friend Stretch's place. Stretch is played by Michael Rapaport, in one of the most hugely entertaining performances of the year.

Stretch is a gun-wielding lunatic who makes a habit of patting himself on the back for becoming what he perceives to be the beer distribution king of Lower Manhattan. Until now, I've never quite grasped Rapaport's appeal (I could easily have lived without his one-note performance in "Mighty Aphrodite"), but he's got Stretch's limited perspective down cold. The movie captures the everyday New Yorker's frenetically-paced life perfectly (no lazy wine and cheese parties, a la rich-guy Woody Allen), and Rapaport transposes that pace into his tumbling, heroically self-reverential speech.

Stretch can't just agree with you, he has to say, "Right-right-right. OK. Right," and his obsession with being at "the summit, the peak, the pinnacle" of beer distribution nearly had me on the floor. He offers to give Redmond a job loading trucks, but Redmond passes, since he's pretending to be writing a book on "the truth" and is looking for "something bigger."

"What's bigger than this," Stretch responds, majestically sweeping his hand across several pallets loaded up with brew, "this is beer!"

I want to say that there's a nutty sub-plot concerning the Beer O'Rama guys trying to kill Stretch for under-selling them (a conceit that seems lifted from the ice cream wars in Bill Forsythe's "Comfort and Joy"), but the entire movie is comprised of vaguely-attended-to-minutiae that comes and goes in spurts. This is charming when things are rolling along at a steady clip, but evolves into a nuisance when the wheels suddenly stop turning. Early on, Redmond sees an attractive flight attendant (Linda Fiorentino) quietly crying to herself on the B train, but she rebuffs his offer to try to cheer her up. Later, he pulls a fortune out of a fortune cookie that reads, "Your attendant godling has lost her way," and he takes this to mean that Fiorentino is his path to salvation. He has to find her. This is sort of sweet, but now things start getting ironically thoughtful, and the juice soon runs out of what's going on.

The big bright spot in this part of the movie is a long scene in an airport lounge between Fiorentino and Corrigan that is achingly real. Redmond recognizes the loser in himself, but flatly refuses to accept that he's a child. He's a man, he insists, and he thinks he's falling in love with the obvious woman sitting next to him. Fiorentino is cynical, but warms up to him in quite a believable way. It's simply a great scene, but it really feels like it fell out of a different movie. The tone at this point is wavering too much for the story elements to hang together all the way to the end. I should repeat, though, that this is top-notch writing from a couple of guys who only seem to be discovering their true voice.

There is a gentle supporting performance from Lili Taylor, as an ex-girlfriend of Redmond's who won't accept that their relationship is over, but it doesn't contain any kind of wrap-up. It's just left hanging. Taylor is charming, but the highlight of the supporting roles is Burt Young as a roughneck who is trying to get the brick of cocaine back from Redmond. Once again, the bizarre dialogue is the key. When Corrigan gives Young an unsatisfactory answer to a question concerning the doomed coke transaction, Young says, "That's vague. I like Precise. With a 'P.'"

There's also a Russian hit-man (Olek Krupa) who, in the middle of throttling Corrigan, uses a small book to look up the phrase, "I will kill you horribly." I assume that would be kill with a "K."

"Kicked in the Head" contains gunplay, recreational drug use, violence, and a generous portion of profanity. There is also a night of sexual escapades between Corrigan and Fiorentino. Rated R. 90 minutes.

Surprised by the vehemence of the critical reaction against "Kicked in the Head," I took a very unscientific poll of friends and acquaintances who saw the film on its opening weekend. Nine out of ten adults hate it, but college-age friends seem to like it just fine. This is not "Beavis and Butthead," and not an intentional assault on adult sensibilities, so the depth of the reaction is hard to fathom. Particularly since I am a long way from 'college-age,' and I like the movie quite a bit.

Making a 'coming of age' movie is a chancy enterprise, almost as chancy as making a 'black comedy.' With the latter genre, what strikes one viewer as mordantly witty will be clearly gross and disgusting to another, and a person who likes one black comedy might well turn up her nose at the next one that comes along. Making black comedies is not a guaranteed route to wealth and fame.

Similarly, coming of age movies can never hope to satisfy every person who sees them. Each of us has our own particular story against which we test those of others, and it can be a pretty stringent test. Additionally, some people would rather not be reminded of their own personal story; they've spent a lot of time sweeping reminders of it under the rug of memory, and resent an artist who will try to expose that dust to the light of day.

Matthew Harrison and Kevin Corrigan face some of these obstacles with their new collaboration, "Kicked in the Head," and they have predictably swept up a storm of ire among some of their audience. But if you can stand to be reminded of how achingly vulnerable you felt when you were growing up, and of how much you escaped into a fantasy life, you might be one of those who can appreciate the courage and vigor with which this directing/acting duo tells their story.

Corrigan, who made a memorable splash as 'the ugly guy' in last year's "Walking and Talking," and who has a regular role on TV in "Pearl," inspired this story with his own hapless misadventures with landlords and girlfriends. While enduring a particularly lengthy patch of bad luck on these fronts, he would entertain his friend, Harrison, by telling stories from his own life as if they were they latest chapter of a long-running soap opera. He would frequently begin a conversation with a gambit like, "you'll never believe what happened today..." From these stories "Kicked In the Head" was born.

Set in Manhattan's Lower East Side, a favorite playground for New York City's independent filmmakers, this story follows Redmond (Corrigan) as he tries to gather up the experience he needs to write a book on the meaning of life. This occupation is constantly interrupted by people who think he should be doing something more mundane, like getting a job or running errands. The story begins when he runs into his zany Uncle Sam, played by James Woods in his best chew-up-the-scenery mode, who prevails upon him to deliver a package to a subway station.

At the station a strange man approached him, but as he draws near a car pulls up nearby and the driver begins wildly firing a gun in loony Hong Kong style, which keeps the package from being passed on. This is the first of several scenes in "Kicked in the Head" with copious gunplay, but no one is ever so much as nicked by any of the hundreds of flying bullets, one of the elements that really annoys the people who don't like this film. If you can allow yourself to read this as a manifestation of the adolescent imagination, which revels in playing cops and robbers and supposes that everyone in such a cartoon-inspired universe survives unscathed to fight another day, you will probably find it easier to enjoy this likable little fantasy.

After this noisy opening, "Kicked In the Head" goes into high gear and races through the rest of its plot, which involves the petty gangsters who want to retrieve Redmond's package, other friends of his who want to use him and move him in different ways, and a world-weary stewardess who might just be an angel. (Played by Linda Fiorentino, she corrects Redmond with a gentle 'flight attendant' when he first calls her a stewardess, then refers to herself with the latter appellation through the rest of the film.)

Such a zippy plot with so many complications gives Harrison the opportunity to employ many excellent actors. He uses Fiorentino's persona better than anyone else has since "The Last Seduction," potentially reviving interest in her future career which has been dampened by the many pallid characterizations in otherwise successful films like "Men In Black." Michael Rapaport rivals Woods in the scenery chewing department with his wild impersonation of Stretch, the out-of-control but controlling friend who wants Redmond to come to work in his beer distribution business.

Lili Taylor, as big a mainstay of independent cinema as Parker Posey, but with a much broader range, plays a former girlfriend of Redmond's misleadingly named Happy, who turns up from time to time to remind him of life on the ground when his pretensions threaten to carry him away. She adds a similar substantial weight to the entire production. And Burt Young, probably best known as Rocky's little brother, plays the local crime boss with a lot of comic menace.

"Kicked In the Head" uses archival footage of the 1930's Hindenberg disaster both as marker of one of Redmond's obsessions (he carries around a flip book of the crash) and a metaphor for the feeling that his life is reeling out of control. While the film could stand on its own without this slightly pretentious addition, it is fun to see what happens when the footage is wound backwards, and the dirigible leaps up phoenix-like from the inferno on the ground and become whole again in the air. Combined with the angel/flight attendant symbols this adds a little classical gas to the point of the story.

This is clearly a boy story. While the women are without exception more mature than the men, they only have secondary, supportive roles. But in a film where all the men, including Uncle Sam and the local crime boss, clearly need to grow up, the presence of women as a marker of maturity can be read as a positive sign.

As in Harrison's previous film, "The Rhythm Thief," New York City is really the star of this new movie. It is almost impossible to imagine the story unfolding in this particular way in any other place. And the city streets provide lots of excellent stages for its various scenes. The apartment in which the story was conceived and written becomes the set for Stretch's apartment in the movie, and many other details are close to the actors' and director's personal lives. Coming under the wing of Martin Scorcese (who executive-produced this movie) Harrison's filmmaking has grown considerably, and not merely in budget, from his more independent days. "Kicked In the Head" has stirred up quite a storm of animosity among most critics, and it deserves an audience.