CLASSIC stories do not make classic films, at least where this is concerned. Part love story, part thriller, Conrad's novel "Victory", is considered a novel of some power. This adaptation by writer-director Mark Peploe, who has colloborated for a long time with Bernardo Bertolucci, is little more than a good-looking, but over-simplistic yarn featuring some talented actors.

The setting is the tropical Dutch East Indies in 1913. Willem Dafoe plays Axel Heyst, an intense yet distant man, who has a fondness for quoting his misanthropic father. Jaded with society, mistrustful of the world ("The world is a bad dog, and it will bite you if you give it a chance"), Heyst now lives in self-imposed exile on a remote island in the Dutch East Indies. Making a rare visit to the local port of Surabaya to collect some furniture, he meets an attractive, but unhappy French woman, Alma, playing in an orchestra at his hotel. Reluctantly, at first, Heyst is drawn into Alma's tragedy and tries to help her. However, in the process Heyst makes a life-long enemy, who never loses the desire to ruin him.

The cinematography in the film is lush. The bustling Javanese port town, the islands appearing through the sea mist and thick tropical forests provide an exotic backdrop to events. You can't really fault the acting either. Dafoe and Jacob, the love interest, manage to infuse some electricty into an otherwise limp, and unhoned script. And it's not just because they both get their kit off. Sam Neill, as the decadent, homosexual "Mr Jones" and Rufus Sewell, as the good-looking thug, Ricardo, make a sinister duo in the latter part of the film. However, the film is really like a cake that fails to rise. It's not bad, just it needed more thought before being so extravagantly brought to the screen.