Short Takes

CINEMA

A Big Bet On Boxing

Municipal corruption in DIGGSTOWN is presided over by snaky-mean John Gillon (Bruce Dern), who has a special interest in its boxing arena. A con man named Gabriel Caine (James Woods) ultimately induces him to bet all his money on a series of boxing matches. There are to be 10 of them in 24 hours, each pitting a local tough against "Honey" Roy Palmer (Louis Gossett Jr.), who is unknown to these red-necks. If Palmer wins all his bouts, he and Gabriel will make millions. This unlikely and farcical situation is not well suited to director Michael Ritchie, whose gift is for sardonic realism. And 10 fights in a row get monotonous. Diggstown is at best an amiable mess, never as funny or suspenseful as it wants to be.

THEATER

British Send-Up

Tom Stoppard's later career, translating minor classics (Molnar's Rough Crossing, Nestroy's On the Razzle) and turning good novels into earnest screenplays (Billy Bathgate, The Russia House), has disappointed fans of his early dazzling wordplay and schoolboy ingenuity. Last week Broadway revived his glittering past in a double bill of THE FIFTEEN MINUTE HAMLET (1976), just what the title suggests, and THE REAL INSPECTOR HOUND (1968), an exquisite mockery of the dreary mysteries that clog the British stage and the critics who tout them. Simon Jones, all pomposity and ambition, silkily plays a pseudocerebral reviewer. David Healy is all lip-smacking crassness and jollity as a dimmer rival.

MUSIC

Doing It His Way

They were the Dan and Dave of country music. But during the past two years, while Garth Brooks was busy moving country into the mainstream, his main rival, CLINT BLACK, was sidelined with personal matters -- a happy marriage to actress Lisa Hartman and a messy separation from his manager Bill Ham. Now Black is back with The Hard Way, a collection of 10 original down-home tunes. It may be hard to believe that someone with his squinty-eyed good looks knows so much about heartache, but Black is at his best in weepers like Something to Cry About and Buying Time -- laments about cheating lovers, leaving lovers or - having no lovers at all. No need for tears, though. The Hard Way shows that Black is still a winner.

BOOKS

Dead Teen Heartthrob

Talk about niche marketing! FOR THE LOVE OF ROBERT E. LEE (Soho; $20) sounds like a beach read for female Civil War buffs, preferably of the Southern persuasion. But this first novel by M.A. Harper is both a richly imagined life of Lee as tortured family man and the coming-of-age tale of Garnet Laney, whose modern teen torments are exacerbated by her mad crush on the long-dead Savior of the South. Chapters (and prose styles) alternate between South Carolina in 1966 and Lee's era with only an occasional false note in either century. And just when Garnet's obsession threatens credulity, a healing accident leaves in its wake the awareness that we all -- soldiers and starry- eyed girls alike -- are the imperfect reflections of our family histories.

TELEVISION

Dark Business

A Depression-era factory worker invents an engine that runs on water. But instead of beating a path to his door, the world tries to beat him into the ground. THE WATER ENGINE, a TNT movie based on David Mamet's 1976 play, is a social-protest melodrama with a dense Kafkaesque overlay: a vaguely threatening chain letter snakes through town; odd, discomfiting conversations are overheard on the bus; a sinister lawyer asks, "Do you think I like conducting business in darkness?" Director Steven Schachter, working from Mamet's script, sustains a mood of edgy paranoia, and the cast of veteran Mamet interpreters (William H. Macy, Joe Mantegna, Patti LuPone) couldn't be better. Result: the most original and gripping TV movie since Twin Peaks.