Max Millan and Francis "Lion" Delbuchi are two drifters that some how meet up on the open road. Max, a recent convict, invites Lion onto a journey from California to Pittsburgh where he plans to open a car-wash.
112 min - Rated R - Dir. by Jerry Schatzberg (see Panic in Needle Park), Starring Gene Hackman as Max & Al Pacino as "Lion"
Review by LEWIS
First of all I would like to say, it is absolutely shocking to me that a worm hole didn't open up and suck the universe into oblivion when Al Pacino and Gene Hackman were put together in an intimate buddy movie such as this. Wow! My god, these are two of the greatest American actors to grace the screen.
With that said, this was a great movie. And it was very much an "actor's" movie. These two characters will remind you a little of George and Lenny from Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men". Max (Gene Hackman) is a seasoned, gruff man who proudly wears a chip on his shoulder. He has become a wise man of street smarts, but has lost his ability to laugh. That's where Francis (or "Lion" as Max decides to call him) comes in. He's a little too naive, a little too trusting, but he's the funny guy. He doesn't like things to get too serious, and as soon as they do he'll find a joke in it.
Well this makes for a great buddy movie. Each character needs the other to balance things out. So we go on a cross country journey with the pair where we wind up in dive bars, Colorado work prisons, diners and other places full of grit and grime. It's great a great ride.
As I said before, the corp of the film is the buddy story and I don't know if I've seen it done so well. The characters seem so real, and the emotional ride the two go through would be an actors dream.
I don't really want to get into the scarecrow thing, because it's a really nice part of the film that should be experience when you watch it. Just know that the title is appropriate.
I highly recommend this movie if you love either of the actors, or you're a fan of buddy flicks. Honestly, if you like things like the Lethal Weapon series you love the play between these two ruffians.
ACTING - 9.75 (I really considered a 10...it's close to being worth it)
STORY - 8.5
LOOK - 8 (some real good scenic shots, but other things are not so special)
1 comment:
MORE *1970s UGLY* MASQUERADING AS "REAL"
Beginning in the late 1960s, American films got a serious case of *The Uglies*---and began barfing out dreary crap about bums, junkies and psychos, filmed in cheesy surroundings in "earth" tones: brown, yellow, green: The colors of *illness*.
Back from the dead comes the worst, like this stink-bomb from the "director" of PANIC IN NEEDLE PARK, another panorama of deranged sickos filmed in slums with slum-color photography [*hawk-ptoo*].
Here's your necrophiliac groupie, digging up the rotted remains of a decade best forgotten:
"...the emotional ride the two go through would be an actors dream."
That's about as enjoyable as a regional bowling tournament in another part of the country. An actor's dream sure doesn't add up to a film-goer's pleasure.
There's more:
"My god, these are two of the greatest American actors to grace the screen..."
The foregoing is a damning confession of ignorance: film history, acting technique [*real* acting not scenery-chewing hacks], and *theology*: Don't invoke a deity you don't believe in, kid---it ain't "proper behavior". Pretend like you know who *your mom* was and behave yourself, huh ? Attaboy.
And *this*:
"dive bars, Colorado work prisons, diners and other places full of grit and grime. It's great a great ride."
"Great ride" is it ? dive bars, prisons, grit and grime ?
Uhh...this kid needs more help than he can give himself.
Right *now*.
The wind-up:
"I highly recommend this movie if you love either of the actors, or you're a fan of buddy flicks."
"Fan of buddy flicks" ?
*groan* I should have known.
We *get it*: You young guys are all **communists, junkies and metrosexuals**, but do you have to rub our noses in it by revealing the hideously perverted insides of your diseased skulls ?
Cheers !
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