
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, March 2, 1991                   TAG: 9103020400
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: E-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: CHRIS GLADDEN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

FILM'S COWBOYS AREN'T ALWAYS HEROES

"My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys" is a low-key tribute to the contemporary western. Just look at some of its cast members: Scott Glenn, Ben Johnson, Tess Harper, Dub Taylor, Clu Gulager, Gary Busey. All are veterans of down-home sagebrush dramas of one sort of another.

Director Stuart Rosenberg also has some experience with the genre. He made the underrated "Pocket Money." Rosenberg's best movie may be "Cool Hand Luke." Though not a western, it's a Southern religious allegory with a lot of traits of the contemporary western - particularly its engaging rebellious hero.

This time out of the chute, Rosenberg delivers a likable, predictable story about a battered rodeo rider who tries to go home again. It's reminiscent of Sam Peckinpah's "Junior Bonner," a better movie, until it turns into a hybrid of "Rocky" and the "Karate Kid."

Glenn plays H.D. Dalton, a top-ranked bull rider who fills in for a rodeo clown and falls afoul of a critter whose orneriness is of mystical proportions.

H.D. goes home to heal and finds that his sister (Harper) and her husband (Busey) have put his father in a nursing home. Ben Johnson, in a typically fine character role, plays the cantankerous father, Jesse Dalton. H.D. finds his old man's confinement intolerable and busts him out of the home. It turns out that sis has Jesse's power of attorney and is being pressured by her husband to sell the land.

Meanwhile, H.D. renews a romance with Jolie, an old love (Kate Capshaw). Jolie's adolescent son (Balthazar Getty) is sullen and hard to handle. But H.D. and Jesse redirect the boy's character when they set out to teach him bull riding.

The script by Joel Don Humphries has too many situations at work to handle any one satisfactorily. Because of that, some of the characterizations are perfunctory. Harper is unusually shrill and gives an uncomfortable performance and Busey is just sleazy. Capshaw handles her role well but it doesn't go far enough. Glenn is convincing until he's sitting atop a barn while Johnson plays Mr. Miyagi to him. A this point, the movie degenerates into out-and-out silliness.

There are other problems, as well. The relationship between H.D and the boy who wants to be a rider deserves much more attention. And the movie looks bad, whether it's because of a low budget or an attempt at realism is anyone's guess.

But when the story focuses on the efforts of Jesse and H.D. to come to terms with one another, it's a hard picture to dislike. Johnson can bring a priceless authenticity to stories such as this.

`My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys,' 1/2 A Samuel Goldwyn picture at Salem Valley 8. Rated R for language and violence; 106 minutes.

by CNB