Director: Ridley Scott
Year Released: 1991
Rating: 2.5
The ultimate chicks-on-the-run film (or feminist Western reversal) left me feeling kinda lukewarm after seeing it and rather cold some time later and I'm not sure why. It's one of those much-ballyhooed films that pop-culture really clings to and references; perhaps because women have really gravitated towards it and its view of feminine freedom in a man's world, with men, of course, being over-sexed, mock-serious dopes who cheat and steal and are failures in the bedroom. The film draws such a sharp line between the genders, and the only hu-man who seems remotely sympathetic to the girls (Geena Davis, Susan Sarandon) is the police chief (Harvey Keitel), whereas the rest behave badly, smashing things and smoking and pursing everything with a period with their zippers inching downward. The two girls on the run, however (they are on the run because of an attempted rape that is entirely too forced and too hollow a device to feeling like anything other than a device and social comment), are half-and-half - half completely moronic and bumbling, the other cold and shrewd and calculated. Had screenwriter Callie Khouri skipped the cream, to complete my poor metaphor - not written them like complete airheads (particularly Davis, doing the typical blonde shtick) for two thirds of the movie, and given them consistently average intelligence levels - I would have respected them more, but since they are from the South I presume she wanted to maintain stereotypes. Some of the road-movie trappings are present but I didn't mind them too much - I was bothered by the crying cop and ridiculous truck driver and the oft-mimicked suicide plunge at the end, though (which brought to mind Butch Cassidy sans sniper rifles and attack helicopters). A mixed affair, all in all - liked some bits, not others. Best parts: everything with Brad Pitt (particularly the police investigation), Geena Davis' bank robbery and the Rastafarian who uses a trunk as a bong.
