The End of Violence

(MGM)

Wim Wenders returns to the ranks of the world's leading filmmakers with this story of a film producer (Bill Pullman) who, just as his wife (Andie MacDowell) is about to leave him, gets kidnapped and takes refuge with a party of Mexican gardeners while being observed by a NASA scientist (Gabriel Byrne). What saves the movie from being contrived and schematic is Wenders's refusal to preach. The End of Violence is not a message but a meditation, a look at the possibility that the greatest act of violence might be the act of observation itself.