Customer Reviews

Lost Junction

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a pleasant little film with an amiable cast. It's always fun to see Billy Burke in a starring role. You may think you know where this is going from the first view of the corpse in the trunk, but you'd probably be wrong. There's a touching side trip to Charleston, where Jimmy (Burke) faces down some old demons, even if the film never knows quite what to do with the Jake Busey character after this, and Neve Campbell is properly enigmatic as "the girl"--she's femme enough without being overly fatale. My favorite scene is when Dill, er, Billy, er, Jimmy sings along with a tape of Fred Neil on "Other Side of This Life." If you've never seen "Dill Scallion," it's a much better film than "Lost Junction," but this one is okay, an agreeable time-waster, if a bit more beige than noir. But that's fine too.

The opening shot of this pleasing film is enhanced by buoyant scoring from Normand Corbeil, and this reveals to viewers that the work that they are about to see is not meant to be noirish in nature, but instead, in an actor's scenario such as this, a general tincture of incongruity is to be established from the outset. Director Peter Masterson, with assistance from lead Neve Campbell, ensures that this is accomplished, while her co-lead Billy Burke consistently provides a foil for Campbell, both being aided by a well-crafted script credited to Jeff Cole, who also produces here. Drifter Jimmy McGee (Burke) is stranded with his broken-down automobile along a back road in an unidentified state in the American South when he is fortunately given a ride from Missy Lofton (Campbell), driving her vintage convertible, but he soon learns that Missy has more than altruism behind her offer of a lift, because she takes McGee with her to her bank in the small town of Lost Junction whereupon she withdraws her entire savings of over $320,000, after which she shows Jimmy the contents of her car's trunk: her dead husband. This all proves to be a bagful with which bewildered Jimmy must deal, and he decides to set off, by foot this time, along the same country road upon which Missy had found him, but she has other ideas and will not permit him to go his own way, Jimmy therefore discovering that he is tied to a woman whose sinister background is more startling than he could have expected, and the two of them, in addition to all other main characters from the screenplay, dovetail to a climactic meeting back in Lost Junction. The film's storyline unfolds in an interesting manner, and solid performances are turned in by the cast, with Campbell's reading being particularly effective, and director Masterson paces his scenes correctly, permitting the narrative's admittedly bizarre events to develop within a well-detailed and naturalistic framework. The editing of Peter Frank and cinematography by Thomas Burstyn, the latter utilizing beautiful Quebec locations, are invaluable, with all shooting occurring during daylight hours for this film that, largely as a result, becomes a whimsical character study that emphasizes its elements of mystery and romance, thereupon further negating any possible connection to the Noir genre.

This movie start's out with a twist and it stays there until the end. If
you like Neve Campbell this is your movie, she is at her best. She plays
a woman of mystery on a mission. Not great, but a good movie.

A very effective film in which the worst is always to come. An old greedy and dirty doctor takes advantage of a young girl raped by her father and provides her with an abortion, in fact a sterilization at the same time. The doc is killed. So what happens next; She moves the body to New Orleans to have him buried next to his wife or something. She is getting all her money out of the bank, what was on her personal savings bank account. She goes to New Orleans to get back to a boy friend of hers who does not respect her at all and takes advantage of her again. Along the way she meets with a young man who has a guilty feeling on his back that is so heavy that he can, hardly walk tall and straight. But he falls in love with her. And after a lot of small details he manages to go away with her practically freed by the sheriff himself. And we only learn who killed the peculiar doctor at the very end and it is a general surprise. How complicated simple things can become in the hands of complicated spirits, and police and justice are some of the most complicated spirits in this world.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines

Fans of Neve Campbell will enjoy her in her role as Missy in Lost Junction. This movie wasn't bad, nor was it superd. Middle of the road I'd say, and I found it in the $5.50 bin at Wal-Mart so it's not like I wasted much on it. Lost Junction is a movie I certainly wouldn't mind watching again. Campbell as Missy stops and picks up a man who's car has broke down on the side of the road just outside her tiny everyone-knows-everyone town of Lost Junction and he gets sucked into the drama of her life. To say any more would really ruin an interesting movie. It kept me entertained the entire time I was watching it and I didn't expect the ending either. Great for killing some time or if you just want to veg out and watch something that's not too challenging. If you can find it for as cheap as I did or less, certainly worth a buy, otherwise try renting first.

Gaining stardom in the television series PARTY OF FIVE and then gaining movie notoriety with the SCREAM series, Neve Campbell has never really achieved the status many had predicted. Movies like LOST JUNCTION may be why. Director Peter Masterson (The Trip to Bountiful) never seems to focus on what kind of movie he's created. Is it one of those Southern film noir with the notorious femme fatale? Is it a black comedy without any true laughs? Or is it just simply a love story about two misguided people? It's a combination of all of them. Campbell is a femme of course, but I'm not sure she's too fatale. She plays a Southern lass (with a really bad accent) who gives a lift to drifter Billy Burke (Ladder 49). She then takes him to her bank and arranges to withdraw her total savings. Seems that Missy (Miss Campbell) is married to someone named Doc, and he's off on a trip somewhere. We know pretty soon, however, that Doc's body is in the trunk of her 1959 Cadillac. So from there we're asked to discover how Doc died and whodunit. Is it Missy's opportunistic boyfriend (Charles Powell, basically awful in his role); or did Missy herself bump him off? The premise is a reworking of the ridiculous Dixie Chicks song, GOODBYE EARL. You have an abusive spouse, so it's okay to kill him and get away with it. One thing of note in this film is the casting of usual badguy Jake Busey as Burke's old friend who is crippled because Burke pushed him off a cliff into a quarry and who has been guilt-ridden ever since. Once Busey is introduced (without the wild hair or manic look in his eyes), they don't know what to do with him so he just joins Burke as kind of a sidekick, but has nothing to contribute once the reunion occurs.
LOST JUNCTION is a misguided, inconsistent film, with loads of atmosphere but no real substance, and an ending that is so preposterous, it's hard to believe.

Despite the some edition problems and the presence of lagoons in the script, the story retains its interest. A disturbed woman in his early twenties, who has suffered sexual abuse of his own father and maltreats of his husband finds casually, a man in the middle of the road who eventually will help to dig in her life and face her demons.

This movie doesn't even deserve a *star*.
Lousy movie.......instead of Lost Junction, it should be called LOST TIME!