You might know character actor Terry Kinney if were to see him in a random film, but you might not know why you should respect him. Though he’s cashed plenty of paychecks appearing in crap like The Firm and Save the Last Dance, Kinney is eminently worthy of praise as one of the co-founders of Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theater, without which we might not have John Malkovich, Gary Sinise, Joan Allen, Gary Cole and John Mahoney. That’s right, folks! No Con Air!
Kinney turns up in movies here and there, and he was particularly memorable on Oz, but, having seen him direct the daylights out of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest on Broadway, I’ve always figured he had something more significant to contribute outside of the theater. According to Variety, that something might’ve just arrived in Diminished Capacity, a Plum Pictures-financed feature based on a screenplay by Sherwood Kiraly about a brain-damaged man (Matthew Broderick) who embarks on a road trip with his Alzheimer’s-suffering uncle (Alan Alda) and his ex-flame (Virginia Madsen). Along the way, they attempt to sell a rare baseball card. Neat.
This all sounds unbearably quirky, but I trust Kinney to find the humanity in this material. The movie is scheduled to begin shooting "this spring", which means it should probably already be underway. I wish it the best.