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

DATE: SATURDAY, April 23, 1994                   TAG: 9404250144
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: B-10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By MIKE MAYO CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

NOT EVEN JOHN WAYNE COULD SAVE THESE BAD GIRLS

From the opening scene - black-clad Christian reformers marching down a dusty street to the tune of ``Shall We Gather at the River'' - to the final shoot-out - complete with a machine gun - ``Bad Girls'' is trying to imitate ``The Wild Bunch.''

That was a poor choice of source material for this would-be feminist Western. A version of ``Shane,'' ``High Noon'' or, better yet, ``The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance'' told from a woman's perspective might have added something new to the genre. But to recast Sam Peckinpah's rhapsody to male bonding simply doesn't work. The result is a sloppy mess of movie that succeeds only in making its cast look silly.

Cody Zamora (Madeleine Stowe), Anita (Mary Stuart Masterton), Eileen (Andie MacDowell) and Lilly (Drew Barrymore) are prostitutes in Echo City, Colo. Their business appears to be prospering until Cody shoots one of Anita's abusive clients, thereby calling down the wrath of the aforementioned Christians who promptly decide to lynch Cody.

Her friends spring her, of course. So with Pinkertons on their trail, the four daring desperadettes (or should that be desperadas?) are off.

In a bald contrivance typical of the half-baked script, they run across the outlaw Kid Jarrett (James Russo) while he robbing the bank where Cody keeps her savings. From that point on, the plot becomes even more ludicrous. Since this is not supposed to be a ``realistic'' film, that's not necessarily a problem. But the film also falls short in emotional and visual terms.

Particularly in the last reels - when the protagonists are supposed to be strong, independent women standing up for themselves and fighting against overwhelming odds - they look like kids playing dress-up. The reason is simple: there are no real characters in the script by Ken Friedman, Becky Johnston and Yolande Finch. Madeleine Stowe manages a credible swagger and tough attitude, but the other three are cut loose. In a smaller supporting role, Robert Loggia does his best to hide his face under a huge hat.

More to the point, all four protagonists are deliberately cast as victims - unfortunate women who wouldn't be renting out their bodies if something terrible (usually a dead husband) hadn't happened to them in the past. (The implication of that equivocation is that it's wrong to mistreat women, but it's all right to mistreat prostitutes.) Then the quartet makes the transformation from injured innocents to hard-bitten gunwomen with no explanation or visible change.

As he has proved with unapologetic exploitation (``Night Call Nurses''), cult hits (``Heart Like a Wheel'') and serious drama (``The Accused''), director Jonathan Kaplan can do fine work with the right material. This time, he was stuck with a narrative retread that never had a chance.

by CNB