By LOU LUMENICK
Rating: 
April 11, 2008
A brilliant Chinese graduate student at a fictitious American university violently flips out in "Dark Matter," an unsatisfying drama that premiered at Sundance '07 and was supposedly delayed because of the Virginia Tech shootings.
Reportedly based on a similar incident that occurred in 1991, the flick presents the student as suffering from culture shock and a lack of skill at negotiating academic politics that leaves him at odds with his one-time mentor in the field of cosmology.
The condescending mentor - threatened when his protégé offers an alternative to the professor's widely accepted theory of dark matter (an unseen substance that shapes the universe) - is extremely well played by Aidan Quinn. And Meryl Streep has a substantial supporting role as a wealthy woman who befriends Chinese students.
But there's little in Billy Shebar's script, the rambling direction by theater and opera helmer Chen Shi-Zheng - or Liu Ye's impassive performance as the student - that explains the protagonist's shooting rampage, which almost seems like a five-minute afterthought.
Running time: 88 minutes. Rated R (violence). At the Village East, Second Avenue and 11th Street.
