" no man is an island , " one character quotes john donne in apt pupil , effectively summarizing the movie's themes . 
while hardly a great film , singer's ambitious adaptation of king's short story * is challenging nonetheless ; perhaps the most shocking aspect of this inclement psychological thriller is that a major studio got behind it . 
apt pupil is a bleak picture destined to be misunderstood by the masses . 
1984 . wonder-bred high school honours student todd bowden ( renfro ) conducts his own extracurricular investigation of kurt dussander , a nazi war criminal who fearfully fled berlin in the 1960s and was never heard from again . 
bowden suspects arthur denker ( mckellan ) , the lonely german senior citizen who lives nearby , is actually a pseudonymous dussander-much research and dusting for fingerprints proves young todd's theory . 
bowden strikes a deal with dussander : in exchange for not revealing his identity , dussander must satisfy bowden's intense curiosity by recounting the atrocities of the holocaust from the nazi point of view . 
the stories he hears keep todd up at night and haunt his daydreams , but like a bystander at a traffic accident , todd's desire for gory details overrides his repulsion . 
bowden revives in dussander feelings dormant since the end of wwii . 
marching in a mock uniform around his kitchen is wholly cathartic for dussander : it leads to his torture of a cat and the torment of his " student " , among other things . 
bowden , who has taken on very hateful qualities ( he kills birds and doodles swastikas on his notebook ) , engages the veteran in an endless game of one-upmanship . 
dussander stands to lose his freedom , and bowden his credibility-in effect , his post-secondary school future . 
all of this winds down to a fairly unpredictable ( and unsettling ) conclusion , one which requires leaps of faith from its audience yet is more satisfying than the source material's excessive climax . 
singer has yet to get keyser s ? ze out of his system . 
his the usual suspects and apt pupil are both about evil masquerading as innocence ( verbal's tics and todd's golden-boy reputation are plausible ruses ) ; they showcase morally bankrupt anti-heroes to whom telling the truth is not an option if they are to achieve their goals . 
apt pupil is a richer film than the usual suspects , a movie famous and popular partly because its plot machinations were not germane to the outcome-there was no way you could see the ending coming , as it was all a hoodwink , anyway . 
thankfully , singer has gotten most of the usual suspects' film-schoolish geek theatrics out of his system . 
some scenes in apt pupil feel overdirected and/or obvious ( the dream sequences were extraneous ) , but the majority of the film is subdued-and singer's handling of the violent scenes is boldly restrained for a film about a murderer and a murderer-in-training . 
mckellan's and renfro's performances contribute enormously to the overall success of the film ; while most people will focus on british stage vet mckellan's finely-tuned realization , i'd like to single out renfro's daring work . 
he isn't afraid to play someone largely unappealing and cold-hearted ; he strips his character of vanity , something many of his peers wouldn't do . 
 ( can you picture kieran culkin or jonathan taylor-thomas in the same role ? ) 
renfro was recently charged with possession of cocaine-i hope he doesn't continue down that path , because he has a big future in good movies waiting for him . 
as guidance counsellor edward french , " friend " schwimmer also deserves mention . 
he wants to be the parent to todd that todd's own well-to-do folks are not ( todd , like most modern kids-and only-children-has mom and dad wrapped around his pinky finger ) , and his sincerity makes the apt pupil's blackening-heart even more apparent . 
but one of the film's ultimate questions , are we born evil or do we learn evil ? , might be answered in french , whose motives are the slightest bit ambiguous . 
no man is an island , indeed-we all have the capacity to make the " right " or the " wrong " choices . 
schwimmer winningly plays one of a trio of fascinating characters who make the unconventional apt pupil laudible . 
-october , 1998 
 * the excellent collection king's stories called different seasons spawned not only apt pupil , but the shawshank redemption ( originally titled rita hayworth and the shawshank redemption ) and stand by me ( originally titled the body ) .