BAD DEBTS

Mr. Wofff's quick, sharp diversion ranges from Charcoal grey to jet black comedy by the time that he's through with it -- a short contemporary conte whose one liability may be the lack of any counterbalancing, redeeming qualities in the lives so dismembered here. Benjamin Freeman is a paranoid paranuisance who worked only once briefly for a living (as an assistant conductor on a train) and ever since has been a congenital spender and chronic liar. His wife Ann, whose money he went through like a dose of salts, left him to live in rather commonplace anonymity in Danbury, Conn. Their only son, Caxton, who supports them both, made his way up rather ambitiously, rather ambiguously behind the scenes in Washington only to be dumped unceremoniously. The final confrontation-liberation scenes are of increasing abrasiveness but Bad Debts has several short term assets -- it's a facile, spiky entertainment of some flair.