Reeling Backward: "Urban Cowboy" (1980)

Let me start by stipulating that John Travolta and Debra Winger, both terrifically talented performers, are crashingly unconvincing as a cowboy and cowgirl. They don't for a second look, talk or behave like people who grew up ridin' and ropin' on the dusty Texas plains.

Travolta's accent, in particular, is a horrid sham of generic Southern clipped consonants and bent vowels that falls just this side of Kevin Costner's Robin Hood in sheer awfulness. And Winger... well, let's just say that she looks more like she sprung from a kibbutz than a frontier claim.

But perhaps that's appropriate.

The film was directed by James Bridges from a script co-written by him and Aaron Latham, based on Latham's magazine story, "The Ballad of the Urban Cowboy: America's Search for True Grit." It was an exploration of the cowboy myth as it's been transposed to a modern big-city setting, with the accompanying music, clothes and other touchstones reimagined for a new generation that grew up thinking broncos were boxy trucks, not frisky ponies.

It was an era of faux cowboys trying to recreate the image of their forefathers, just as disco'd-up "country" bands were exploding on the airwaves with synthesized beats that would've made Hank Williams Sr. faint in his boots. 

In a follow-up story written 20 years later, Latham opined that "the cowboy is the only truly mythic figure that America had created so far. He comes to the fore in the culture, then he recedes for a time, but he always seems to reemerge when we're uncertain about the future."

The late 1970s and early '80s certainly qualifies for that description. After seeing America diminished by Vietnam, Watergate and polyester suits, there was an undercurrent of fear, of feeling unmoored from the nation's pioneer legacy. Men were trading in their Stetsons for hardhats to work on the ocean of oil wells scattering the state.

So Travolta's Bud is a representational figure standing amidst the crossflow of cultural sea changes. A legitimate cowboy who turns into a fake one, he leaves his tiny hometown of Spur for Houston hoping he can catch a job at the refinery where his Uncle Bob works.

Bob is a mentor and role model to Bud, a fellow cowpuncher who made it "big time" in the city with his own family and spread. Never mind that Bod's homestead is part of a crammed subdivision of cheap prefab houses with a grand backyard view of high-power electrical lines.

Bob is played by Barry Corbin, one of those actors with such a consummate authenticity and workaday solidity that he often plays figures of pastoral authority. (And, like Alec Guinness and Ossie Davis, he was always much younger than audiences imagined him to be -- he was still in his 30s when this movie came out.) He's terrific in a rather underwritten role.

The story revolves around the love-hate romance of Bud and Sissy (Winger), a local gal who lives to mix it up. She and Bud impetuously wed after barely starting to date, and a week later they've already separated. The main cause of friction, at least initially, is that she's better at riding a mechanical bull than he is, at least initially.

The robot bull is the hottest new attraction at Gilley's Club, a real-life honky-tonk where a large chunk of the movie takes place. Run by country star Mickey Gilley, who appears and sings in the movie, Gilley's is practically a supporting character, a modern-day bastardization of the Old West saloon, now splayed out across "3½ acres of prairie concrete" and complete with a dance floor, carnival games and more silliness.

One wonders if they even have whiskey behind the bar.

Other pop/country acts of the day also show up to perform, including the Charlie Daniels Band, Bonnie Raitt and Johnny Lee, whose "Lookin' for Love" became a #1 Billboard hit and helped propel the movie's soundtrack into a top seller. Many in the country music biz even mark "Urban Cowboy" as the demarcation between old-school country and new, when it became more popular but more commercialized.

"Urban Cowboy" is in essence a musical, with long stretches of the action taking place sans dialogue as music blares, rendering the entire endeavor into something of a nascent music video. (It was later turned into an unsuccessful stage musical.)

Don't forget, in 1980 Travolta's two big screen hits were "Grease" and "Saturday Night Fever," so the studios no doubt saw "Urban Cowboy" as a way to extend his run as a song-and-dance star. Of course, Bud doesn't sing in the movie, though there is one scene of him doing some impressive clogging (or "kicker dancing," as they would call it in Texas).

The heavy is Wes Hightower, played by my all-time favorite "That Guy" actor, Scott Glenn. Recently released from prison where he was a champion bullrider in the big inmate rodeo, Wes sidles into the scene at Gilley's like a shark swimming into a school of guppies. Amidst the posers and wannabes, he's a real-deal cowboy, a throwback hardcase who's always looking for a good ride and a big payday -- even if a little blood has to be spilled in the process.

First seen wearing a ridiculous see-through mesh shirt that shows off Glenn's signature chiseled torso, Wes easily sets Bud to shame with his prowess on the mechanical bull, then starts making smiling eyes at Sissy. They scuffle, Bud has his drunken rear end handed to him, and before you know it Sissy is shacked up with Wes in a trailer out back of Gilley's, and Bud has decamped to the arms of Pam (Madolyn Smith), a rich city girl who likes to slum it with cowboys.

The story wobbles this way and that, with a whole lot of behavior and music for music's sake. At 132 minutes the movie is at least a half-hour too long. And certain events have an obligatory feel, such as a sudden tragedy and the build-up to the big bullriding competition worth a $5,000 purse (about $15k in today's dollars).

Still, the film has its memorable moments, such as Winger's sexy slo-mo bull ride, her limbs splayed across the mechanical animal like a white trash Diana prancing with the satyrs. With her liquid, soulful eyes and cantankerous stubbornness, she's the best thing about the movie.

I can't finish this essay without discussing the violence against women depicted. Sissy gets smacked around pretty hard by both Bud and Wes, though the former at least apologizes for it after the fact. Disturbingly, in both cases it's presented as something women just have to put up with if they take up with a guy in a 10-gallon hat.

"Urban Cowboy" isn't a standout piece of filmmaking, but it did launch a bunch of careers, and helped change the tide of country music, whether for good or ill. It's one of those movies that stands as a totem representing a time and place; there are worst inscriptions on cinematic tombstones.

Reeling Backward: "Primary Colors" (1998)

"Primary Colors" has the perfect ending -- by which, I mean this 1996 drama embraces the imperfection, disappointment and disillusionment inherit in the American political structure.

The film directed by Hollywood legend Mike Nichols and written by Elaine May from the roman à clef novel by "Anonymous" -- later revealed to be then-Newsweek, now Time magazine columnist Joe Klein -- follows a familiar pattern for this type of political story. A young, smart protagonist gets caught up in the rise and/or fall of a deeply flawed but charismatic politician, and the True Believer gradually turns into a jaded cynic.

"All the King's Men" by  Robert Penn Warren more or less set the standard for the modern political novel, and has twice been made into movies (unsatisfactorily so on both occasions, imho).

"Primary Colors" didn't break any new ground, but it covered familiar territory with a terrific slate of performances and whip-smart dialogue. This film earned a couple of Oscar nominations -- for May's script and Kathy Bates' amazing, frenetic turn as an unhinged political operator -- but its reputation did not outlive its notoriety as a thinly-veiled portrait of Bill and Hillary Clinton circa the 1992 presidential election.

That's a shame; seen again nearly a decade and a half later, I'd call it a top-shelf political drama.

The thing I most liked about it was that the movie didn't shirk from its central message. These stories always reach a breaking point where the young turk confronts the older, idolized politician about their misdeeds. Inevitably, the main character rejects their mentor, deciding that it's better to be a loser with dignity than a winner who's swallowed all his principles for a chance to grab the brass ring and do some good.

Except Henry Burton, the idealistic young campaign manager played by Adrian Lester, doesn't turn away.

The final sequence shows Henry on the receiving end of a full-press charm offensive from Jack Stanton, the Bill Clinton stand-in memorably played by John Travolta, to stay with him and see him through into the White House. The movie transitions to Stanton and his wife Susan (Emma Thompson) dancing at their Inauguration party. Stanton is shown shaking hands with the people who helped elect him -- including Henry, before panning away to a majestic shot of a huge American flag.

Some have interpreted this ending to be more ambiguous -- that it's left unclear whether Henry is just there congratulating the new president, or did indeed stay on the campaign despite his moral crisis. I don't think so. Henry is shown smiling enthusiastically while he's shaking Stanton's hand, which contrasts sharply with the hard, noncommittal expression he had shown him a moment earlier.

Henry caved. He stayed in the fight because he wanted to win it.

Why do I think so? Because the young man had expressly said so himself. The grandson of a legendary civil rights fighter, Henry is sick of always being the ideological purist whose candidate never wins.

Even more important than Stanton's schmoozing of Henry, the key exchange of the film comes more than an hour earlier. Henry is confronted by his estranged girlfriend, March, who as a reporter from the "Black Advocate" peppers Stanton with some uncomfortable questions about using influence to get his arrest at the 1968 Democratic Convention expunged.

March: "That's the kind of man you want to work for, somebody who just wants to get elected?"
Henry: "No, I want to work for a man who fights the really good fight, and then watch a Republican get elected."
March: "What's the difference? Can you tell?!?"
March: "Yes! I can tell the difference between a man who believes what I believe and lies about it to get elected and a man who, well, who just doesn't give a fuck! I'll take the liar."

This demonstrates with stark clarity that Henry is not a wide-eyed naïf wearing rose-colored glasses. He is fully aware of Stanton's flaws -- that he's a serial womanizer, that he'll lie through his teeth if it helps him get ahead in the polls, that he is both cursed and blessed with an almost pathologically need to be liked.

But Henry is still entranced by the notion of someone who shares his progressive political ideals and actually has a shot of getting into office and acting upon them. He's willing to accept a mountain of dirt to reach the pinnacle of power.

I think perhaps the reason "Primary Colors" didn't have staying power is that it was such a product of its time.

Klein drew barely concealed sketches of real-life political players and personalities, leaving no doubt who was standing in for who when it came to the film version -- Billy Bob Thornton as high-strung redneck campaign manager Richard Jemmons, aka James Carville; Emma Thompson as the ambitious political wife who resents subsisting in her husband's shadow, a la Hillary Clinton; Caroline Aaron as domineering Clinton "Friend of Hillary" Susan Thomases, and so forth.

And, of course, Travolta was doing a spot-on impersonation of Bill Clinton, right down to the rolly-polly physique and salt-and-pepper pompadour. He nails Clinton's obsequious speech patterns, the way he piles on the sugary Southern accent and makes everyone in the room feel like he's talking directly to them.

So audiences saw all this and regarded it, perhaps not incorrectly at the time, as "the Clinton movie."

With the passing of years and some distance, though, the film takes on its own character and weight, like a bottle of wine that seemed bitter when it was bottled and has only grown richer with time.

It's notable that the one important character without a direct correlation to real life is also the most interesting, and pivotal. Kathy Bates' Libby Holden, the Stanton's longtime friend and self-described "dust buster," doesn't even show up until nearly an hour into the film. Her job is to put down any dirt about Jack Stanton that crops up, as harshly as possible.

In perhaps the film's most famous scene, Libby holds a gun to the privates of a sleazy attorney who has fabricated a recording of Stanton speaking to a woman claiming to be his mistress. It's a blowsy, chaotic, terrifically funny scene, though completely ludicrous.

A proud, loud lesbian woman, Libby shows up in Stanton's down-home campaign headquarters, wearing a Stetson hat and throwing the f-word around liberally among the genteel Southern ladies. She perches herself in Henry's office and surveys the roomful of campaign workers through the window, selecting a comely young gal with a pixie haircut to be her personal assistant, and lover -- as if the latter were automatically part of the job description of the former.

The trashy Jemmons, who had earlier and spectacularly unsuccessfully tried to pick up the same girl, at least had the decency to make a personal (if unappealing) appeal.

Libby just sort of blows into the movie like an Arkansas twister, wrecking things left and right and sucking up all the air wherever she goes. In her own caustic way, she's every bit as engaging a figure as Stanton himself.

She ends up making the choice that Henry couldn't, and taking it a step further -- sacrificing herself to save both Stanton's political viability and her own blazing sense of right and wrong, carefully though she does conceal it.

And we mustn't forget that Libby, as we are reminded several times, has been in and out of mental institutions. I think "Primary Colors" says something by having the character who'd been in the loony bin be the one who chooses the path of righteous indignation.

The non-crazies usually end up living with the grubby compromises.

3.5 stars out of four

Review: "From Paris with Love"

"From Paris with Love" is a dumb, violent movie, but it knows it. It doesn't take itself seriously, and features John Travolta in a performance of such impish glee, he's obviously enjoying chewing on the scenery so much he should have paid the filmmakers for the privilege, rather than the other way around.

It's such an adrenaline-filled, kooky kick that we don't mind that the plot makes hardly a lick of sense. Sometimes, boys just want to have fun.

Travolta plays Charlie Wax, an American spy sent to Paris do some clean-up work. And to someone like Charlie, getting things clean is a very messy process.

With a shaved head, goatee, gawdy earring and omnipresent keffiyeh and leather jacket, Travolta strikes quite an outlandish figure. The only thing more over-the-top is his behavior. Charlie's M.O. is shoot first, shoot second, and keep on shooting until your problems go away.

In one scene, Charlie goes into a Chinese restaurant looking for cocaine. He takes out his gun and starts blowing away waiters, and finally shoots holes in the ceiling, where streams of powdered narcotics start cascading down.

Who keeps cocaine stored in their ceiling? How did Charlie know it was there? If you're the sort of person who can't help but wonder these things, then this movie is not for you.

Charlie's reluctant partner is James Reece (John Rhys-Meyers), a young up-and-comer sick of his cushy duties acting as the American ambassador's secretary. He can't believe the way Charlie operates, and would rather be spending time with his cute French girlfriend Caroline. (She's French, so it's pronounced "karo-LEAN.")

Charlie clearly enjoys getting a rise out of James, so he does all sorts of crazy things to put them in danger, just so he can save their bacon. In one scene, he takes out an entire gang of drug dealers, then turns to James and thunders, "Tell me that wasn't some impressive shit!"

Based on a story by Luc Besson (who also produced) by screenwriter Adi Hasak, "Paris" was directed by Pierre Morel, who impressed with last year's "Taken." The characters played by Liam Neeson and Travolta couldn't be more different, nor the movies in which they are showcased. Whereas Neeson's ex-spy was a lesson in controlled lethality, Charlie is a giggly killer who really, really likes what he does.

At some point, the story turns from one about drugs to terrorism -- and it occurs just that abruptly. Charlie yells something like, "This isn't about cocaine, it's about terrorists!" And then they start chasing Middle Eastern-looking guys who are plotting to blow up something important.

One moment I have to comment on: At one point a character reveals themselves to be wearing a suicide bomb. In close-ups of the plastic explosives and wiring, you can clearly see a triangular sign in yellow-orange that says, "CAUTION." Now, what kind of terrorists put warning labels on their suicide vests? "Hey, we better let them know, since we don't want anything bad to happen."

I admit I went into "From Paris from Love" thinking it was going to be a supremely stupid movie. I was right, but didn't imagine how much fun idiocy could be.

3 stars

Review: "Old Dogs"

"Old Dogs" is a veritable Travoltafest.

John Travolta stars in the family-friendly comedy, playing Robin Williams' best pal and business partner. And his wife Kelly Preston and their daughter Ella Bleu Travolta both have leading roles in the flick.

Maybe this is the real meaning of "family film."

The movie is in some ways a sequel to "Wild Hogs," a similar movie from a couple of years ago that was a surprise box office hit, which like this one was directed by Walt Becker (the screenplay is by David Diamond and David Weissman).

It's an opportunity for Travolta to poke fun at his sex symbol status, playing a middle-aged guy who mixes up his medications and gets mistaken for a grandpa. I can't think of too many big stars willing to be the happy target of jokes about aging.

In an interesting twist, Preston and Ella Bleu don't play Travolta's significant other and daughter, but Williams'.

Williams and Travolta are Dan and Charlie, two lifelong chums and partners in a sports marketing firm. Charlie is the outgoing lothario, while Dan is the straitlaced business guy. They're about to land the deal of a lifetime with a huge Japanese company, when Dan gets a bolt from the blue.

Seven years earlier, Charlie took Dan to Miami for a night of whirlwind partying to help him get over his divorce, during which he met and married Vicki (Preston). They soon parted ways, but after looking to spark the embers of romance, Dan learns that there was a pair of complications from their brief nuptials: Fraternal twins Zach (Conner Rayburn) and Emily (Ella Bleu).

Vicki has to serve a two-week prison term resulting from some activist protesting, so Dan gets stuck with the kids. Of course, he insists that Charlie share in the fun since it was his meddling that got him stuck in this situation.

The movie is geared toward children, so the humor is rather broad and doofy. Parents may grow a little restless, but the kids will likely enjoy the antics -- such as Charlie's incessantly urinating dog, and junior partner Seth Green getting nuzzled by a giant gorilla.

The most enjoyable parts are the riffs on getting old, such as when the two men get their pills mixed up, with some wacky side effects that would tend to alarm the folks at the FDA. Travolta even subjects himself to an incontinence joke that scores some laughs.

"Old Dogs" is nothing new, but as family comedies go -- both intended for families and starring one -- it's a reasonably good time.

2.5 stars

Video review: "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3"

A better-than-average potboiler, "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3" pairs two veteran actors, John Travolta and Denzel Washington, as a psychotic criminal looking to take the Big Apple down a notch and the public servant tasked with foiling him.

What's most interesting about this flick is that director Tony Scott and screenwriter Brian Helgeland manage to make both the protagonist and antagonist equally charismatic. Ryder (Travolta, in a handlebar mustache and neck tattoo), recently released from prison for embezzlement, wants to make a wad of dough by holding a train full of subway passengers hostage in exchange for $10 million, while teaching an abject lesson in humility.

Garber (Washington) is a Joe Schmoe transit dispatcher who just happens to be the guy who takes Ryder's call, and ends up forming a rapport with the killer. He's competent, forthright, and puts his own neck on the line while the politicians dither, so the audience naturally roots for him.

"Pelham" is a remake of a 1974 film starring Robert Shaw as the heavy and Walter Matthau (!) as Garber. Scott and his cast and crew retain that film's gritty urban vibe while offering a stylish update.

DVD extras are ample and impressive. Washington and Travolta don't do a commentary track, but are well represented in other features. Commentary duties are left to Scott on his own track, and Helgeland and producer Todd Black on the other.

A 30-minute making-of documentary offers plenty of behind-the-scenes insight, including the fact that the guy playing Travolta's loud-mouth henchman was a real-life Albanian mobster.

There's also a 16-minute featurette about the extensive participation of the New York transit system in shutting down subway lines for filming. Also several theatrical trailers, and a 5-minute featurette about Scott working with a hairstylist to get his actors' look just right.

In addition to these extras, the Blu-ray version also comes with a digital copy of the film.

Movie: 3 stars
Extras: 3.5 stars

Review: "Pelham 1 2 3"

The remake of "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3" manages a curious thing: A hostage standoff in which the audiences identifies with both the criminal and the representative of order whose job it is to take him down.

John Travolta plays the subway terrorist, who icily executes hostages while spewing some wild babble about getting revenge on the city of New York. Decked out in a handlebar mustache and neck tattoo, Travolta de-glams with a vengeance for this role, even eschewing the hair pieces he's been wearing in recent years for a thin patch of scruff.

And yet, there's something about the dude, who calls himself Ryder, that makes you want him to succeed -- or at least keep his game going a little longer. Perhaps it's his don't-give-a-flip puckishness, and his stated ambivalence about whether he lives or dies. Yes, he's doing this to get rich, demanding $10 million in one hour before he starts killing innocents.

But Travolta's impish performance stresses Ryder's perverse sense of pride. He feels like he was persecuted for the sort of corruption that is a matter of course in the city's corridors of power, and before his own wick burns out he wants New York's lords of power to know he knows they're all the same.

Denzel Washington plays Garber, a dispatcher for the city's rail department. In the 1974 original, Garber, played by Walter Matthau, was a transit cop who had to negotiate the byzantine bureaucracy of municipal government to prevent people from dying. Here Garber is a nondescript worker drone, who gets tangled in the mess only because he's the one who answers the radio when Ryder calls in with his demands.

Garber is immediately likeable. He's highly competant at his job, unlike the political flunky who runs the dispatch headquarters. And when Ryder offers to let all the hostages go in exchange for the mayor (played by James Gandolfini), it's Garber who ends up putting his own neck on the line. That earns the respect of Ryder, who calls him "the last friend I'll ever make."

Most of the movie is a verbal game of cat and mouse as Garber keeps talking to Ryder, while navigating the increasingly deep political web in which he gets tangled. At one point, we learn some information about Garber that would cause us to lose respect for him. But the way in which this tidbit is drawn out only makes us root more for him.

There's a great scene where they're trying to rush the $10 million to the subway before the deadline, and there's some intense cross-cutting of Ryder issuing threats over the radio with the police car carrying the money careening through city traffic, getting into increasingly serious mishaps along the way. Suddenly the mayor turns to his aide: "Why didn't we put the money in a helicopter?" It's the sort of thing smarter audiences demand of dramatic thrillers, so we feel good that someone onscreen saw fit to ask the question -- even though it is never adequately answered.

"Pelham" was directed by Tony Scott from a script by Brian Helgeland ("Mystic River"), and manages to be a better-than-average potboiler, while offering a tantalizing first-time pairing of two veteran actors. Travolta and Washington skillfully play off each other, even though we don't see them together till near the end. The wait, and the ride, is worth it.

3 stars