Few twists can be found in this bland production

Roman Polanski's childhood may have attracted him to the material.
By JAMI BERNARD
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Please, sir, can I have some more? That is, if there's anything more to wring from the Dickens classic "Oliver Twist," which has been translated to film umpteen times. That might explain the thin gruel Roman Polanski dishes out in this pointless new version.
There's nothing wrong with this "Oliver Twist," and there's nothing right with it. Production values are high, the character actors are energetic. Polanski delivers an acceptable yet thoroughly uninspiring twist on the orphaned Oliver, who gets a raw deal every which way.
After being kicked out of the workhouse for daring to ask for seconds on the gruel, Oliver continues to fare badly at the hands of the adults and social services that should have protected him. He makes his way to London, where he is corrupted, shot at and suffers fevers and fainting fits aplenty in the company of scurrilous types with bad teeth and comb-overs.
There's a word for this kind of macabre childhood -- Dickensian -- and Polanski ought to know, because he endured such a childhood himself. It's easy to see why this well-worn material might have intrigued someone who spent his boyhood largely foraging for himself.
The unfairness of life was better portrayed in Polanski's last movie, "The Pianist." And the director's characteristic sick sense of humor, which has enlivened many a Polanski classic, is absent here, replaced by a gentility that doesn't suit him.
Barney Clark plays the well-mannered Oliver and, like the rest of the movie, he is presentable without being compelling.