Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 8, 1992 TAG: 9201080083
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE MAYO
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
ON THE ROAD WITH THELMA, LOUISE, KOWALSKI, GOLDIE
"Thelma & Louise" wasn't the biggest box office hit of last summer's movie crop, but it was, hands down, the most talked about.Nobody was neutral about this story of freedom, rebellion and sexual attitudes. It was criticized by some as being anti-male and by others for condescending to its female characters. There's some validity to both views, and now that "Thelma and Louise" has arrived on cassette, those who missed it the first time around can decide for themselves.
Louise (Susan Sarandon) is a waitress who takes off for a weekend vacation with her friend, Thelma (Geena Davis), a scatterbrained housewife. They run into trouble at their first stop and spend the rest of the movie trying to get themselves out.
Director Ridley Scott's fondness for striking visuals and panoramic landscapes loses some of its power on video. Because of that, MGM/UA is releasing the film in two formats on tape. There's the conventional version, which basically shows the middle of the frame, and a letterboxed version, with black strips at the top and bottom of the screen. It more accurately reproduces the theatrical image. If you have a big-screen television, you should make a point of finding the latter.
Either version will show you the point of Callie Khouri's controversial script. This story of women on the run is provocative and forces people to ask questions, which makes the film more successful than 99 percent of the movies that come out of Hollywood.
What tends to get lost in the discussion of sexual role reversals and the characters' intelligence (or lack of it) is the fact that "Thelma & Louise" is a road movie. Like the heroines in "The Wizard of Oz" and "It Happened One Night," Thelma and Louise have to leave home and go out on the road to learn who they are.
But in terms of visual style and plot structure, this one shows the influence of two more recent road movies.
"Vanishing Point" was a hit on the drive-in circuit when it was released in 1971. It combines a few existential pretentions with a straightforward chase structure to tell the story of Kowalski (Barry Newman) and his attempts to drive a white Dodge Challenger from Denver to San Francisco. Before it's over, squadrons of highway patrol cars are after him.
The road elements still work best. Whenever the action moves away from the cars and the asphalt, it tends to run into trouble.
One key flashback is unintentionally hilarious. Two gay characters are crude stereotypes. The rural characters don't fare much better, and the naked blonde on the motorcycle is still ridiculous, at best. As an accurate reflection of the times in which it was made, the film wears its counterculture politics on its sleeve.
That said, Newman's performance is still effective. Veteran character actor Dean Jagger steals his scenes as a cagey desert rat, and director Richard Sarafian gives the proceedings a good, gritty look that fits this overachieving little B-movie.
Stephen Spielberg's theatrical debut, "Sugarland Express," is more ambitious and psychologically complex, but it's still a road movie. Based on a true story, it concerns an obsessed young woman (Goldie Hawn) who springs her reluctant husband (Michael Sacks) from jail to help her find her baby. Ben Johnson does his usual terrific job as the cop who tries to save them from themselves.
The shots of seemingly endless columns of police cars following the fugitives have a wonderful, dreamlike beauty that you won't forget. The characters who are so caught up in their illusions are completely believable. Though "Sugarland Express" comes from the same era (1974) as "Vanishing Point," it has aged much more gracefully. It's well worth a second look.
New releases this week:
Dying Young: ** Directed by Joel Schumacher. Stars Julia Roberts, Campbell\ Scott. Rated R for strong language, sexual situations. 107 min. This is an unapologetic tearjerker, though as these things go, it's relatively restrained.\ And because of that, the pace is often sluggish. A wealthy leukemia patient,\ Victor Geddes (Scott) wants an attractive young woman to help him get through\ the aftereffects of his chemotherapy treatment. After he sees Roberts in a\ short, tight skirt, she gets the job. Their relationship is strictly\ professional, but of course that changes. Hollywood melodrama at its glossiest.\
***CORRECTION***
Published correction ran on January 9, 1992.
Because of a columnist's error, in Wednesday Extra's "It Came From the Video Store" column, the wrong actor was named as playing Goldie Hawn's husband in "Sugarland Express." William Atherton played the husband, and Michael Sacks played the kidnapped policeman.
Memo: CORRECTION