It's a pretty decent movie as these things go. Baldwin is Doc McCoy, newly released from prison in order to commit a high-end robbery. Faced with cheating partners, he and his wife, Basinger, make off with a gym bag full of large notes and are pursued throughout the Southwest to the Mexican border, where they finally take off on their own. There is some conflict internal to the family because Basinger had to allow the head of the parole board, also the manager of the robbery, access to her succulent body, and Baldwin resents this, sometimes violently, for the first two thirds of the movie.
Lots of action, more explicit sex and brutality, and competent performances, yet something is missing. The chief subtrahend is originality. It's a remake of Sam Pekinpah's film of the same name, with Steve McQueen and Ali McGraw, from the 1960s. Pekinpah's production was edgier, with unexpected incidents, and used some magnificent locations in west Texas. And the production design and set dressing were superior. Even so quotidian a setting as a garbage dump outside of El Paso reeks with atmosphere in Pekinpah's film. Here, it's just a garbage dump. The same can be said of the interior -- and the exterior, for that matter -- of the seedy hotel in which the final shoot out takes place.
But it isn't so much these details that detract from one's enjoyment of the film, it's the realization that it was done -- and done better -- almost thirty years earlier by a director in whose veins the balance between booze and talent was proportionate. How much in the way of credit should accrue to writers, directors, and producers who simply imitate a successful earlier movie in an attempt to cash in on its popularity and on the loosening of moral strictures in Hollywood? The remake is not quite shot-for-shot but almost, and much of the dialog is identical.
Generally speaking, the performances here aren't bad, even though Baldwin is groomed on his release from the slams like a Hollywood star and lacks McQueen's jailhouse haircut. Kim Basinger does a bit better in the role of prisoner's wife than Ali McGraw did, for that matter. McGraw, unfortunately for her, cute as she was in her darkly furry way, always sounded as if she'd just graduated from Wellesley, which at one time she had.
And the direction is competent without adding much to the goings on. Slow motion is used where Pekinpah had used it. And, if you want an instructive scene, watch the trio of bad guy Michael Madsen, Jennifer Tilly, and the DVM James Stevens when Madsen and Tilly become playful and start throwing take-out food at one another -- fried chicken and french fries. Madsen, without provocation, becomes angry and orders Tilly back into the front seat. In Pekinpah's movie the take out is barbecued ribs with sticky tomato sauce and they're tossed back and forth with abandon. The bad guy remains in the back seat and, pelted about the face with a couple of hefty ribs, grows visibly more irritated until he ends the game in an outburst of pique. Both the players and the car's interior are coated with Texas barbecue sauce. There's hardly any comparison in the effectiveness of the two, almost identical, incidents. Pekinpah's is superior.
None of this should stand as a condemnation of the remake itself. If it stands alone, it's suspenseful and diverting. The world is largely divided into good guys and bad. That usually makes for easily digested entertainment and this movie delivers the goods.
Lots of action, more explicit sex and brutality, and competent performances, yet something is missing. The chief subtrahend is originality. It's a remake of Sam Pekinpah's film of the same name, with Steve McQueen and Ali McGraw, from the 1960s. Pekinpah's production was edgier, with unexpected incidents, and used some magnificent locations in west Texas. And the production design and set dressing were superior. Even so quotidian a setting as a garbage dump outside of El Paso reeks with atmosphere in Pekinpah's film. Here, it's just a garbage dump. The same can be said of the interior -- and the exterior, for that matter -- of the seedy hotel in which the final shoot out takes place.
But it isn't so much these details that detract from one's enjoyment of the film, it's the realization that it was done -- and done better -- almost thirty years earlier by a director in whose veins the balance between booze and talent was proportionate. How much in the way of credit should accrue to writers, directors, and producers who simply imitate a successful earlier movie in an attempt to cash in on its popularity and on the loosening of moral strictures in Hollywood? The remake is not quite shot-for-shot but almost, and much of the dialog is identical.
Generally speaking, the performances here aren't bad, even though Baldwin is groomed on his release from the slams like a Hollywood star and lacks McQueen's jailhouse haircut. Kim Basinger does a bit better in the role of prisoner's wife than Ali McGraw did, for that matter. McGraw, unfortunately for her, cute as she was in her darkly furry way, always sounded as if she'd just graduated from Wellesley, which at one time she had.
And the direction is competent without adding much to the goings on. Slow motion is used where Pekinpah had used it. And, if you want an instructive scene, watch the trio of bad guy Michael Madsen, Jennifer Tilly, and the DVM James Stevens when Madsen and Tilly become playful and start throwing take-out food at one another -- fried chicken and french fries. Madsen, without provocation, becomes angry and orders Tilly back into the front seat. In Pekinpah's movie the take out is barbecued ribs with sticky tomato sauce and they're tossed back and forth with abandon. The bad guy remains in the back seat and, pelted about the face with a couple of hefty ribs, grows visibly more irritated until he ends the game in an outburst of pique. Both the players and the car's interior are coated with Texas barbecue sauce. There's hardly any comparison in the effectiveness of the two, almost identical, incidents. Pekinpah's is superior.
None of this should stand as a condemnation of the remake itself. If it stands alone, it's suspenseful and diverting. The world is largely divided into good guys and bad. That usually makes for easily digested entertainment and this movie delivers the goods.