4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Goofball noir, October 8, 2006
This review is from: River of Grass (DVD)
Directed by Kelly Reichardt, whose most recent effort, Old Joy (2006) has been getting great reviews, River of Grass is a kind of nose-thumbing take on film noir on-the-lam road movies, the grand-daddy of which has to be the seminal and amazing Gun Crazy (1949). As in that film--as well as quite a few since--there's a girl and a guy. But in this case, the girl is an unhappy housewife and the guy is a jobless drifter who accidentally comes into possession of a gun.
And in fact, the gun belongs to the girl's father, a detective on the local (read: somewhere in south Florida, near the Everglades) police force. The detective and his cop buddies are shown, not as dumbbells or geniuses either, but as regular guys who are mostly fed up with their lives. What's interesting, among other things, about this film is that the father is an amateur jazz drummer and the film, divided into numbered parts (i.e., we see "1", "2", etc. displayed on screen for each part), each of which is accompanied by the sound of the father's jazz drumming, which lends a kind of mocking takeoff on suspense to the proceedings.
This is not a great film, but it's one with a sharp sense of biting humor, especially at the end, when the girl--played by Lisa Bowman--gets completely fed up with her road partner Lee (Larry Fessenden) and takes appropriate action. Before that, the two of them think they've killed someone, which is the basis for their going on the lam. But this ostensibly crime-fueled road trip is stymied by Lee's total wimpiness.
He can't or won't hit on Cozy (the girl), even though she's decidedly sensuous. He doesn't take chances; he has basically no cajones. Sometimes he talks about his insecurities. All of this adds up to the nose-thumbing of the male archetype/stereotype for this kind of movie and at the same time destroys Cozy's romantic notion of being chased after by authorities, always on the run. When she finds out that they never had to be on the run in the first place, this combined with Lee's wimpiness leads her to some drastic action.
This is a decidedly different take on film noir and while not completely successful (hence the three stars) does have enough merit to warrant at least one viewing.
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3.0 out of 5 stars
Dysfunctionals on the Lam, April 28, 2011
This review is from: River of Grass (DVD)
River of Grass
dir Kelly Reichardt 1995
Dysfunctionals on the Lam 3*
I largely agree with reviewer LGwriter, though I'd say the film is more a takeoff on Badlands than on classic noir. Perhaps I haven't seen enough noir on-the-lam films. Whichever.
I won't go into a plot synopsis, since LGwriter and the Amazon reviewer, Bret Fetzer, do a good job of that. I'm basically here to chime in on the lukewarm response, to offset the handful of 5*, seeming sock puppet (i.e. friends and family), reviews.
This is not a BAD film, and there are aspects and moments of interest, but it's certainly not one I'll be revisiting anytime soon. I like quirky indies, even if they may be technically lacking. But they have to have something else to draw me in, and this one just didn't for me.
On the plus side, at least for some, it does share the whole slacker aesthetic, aging 20-somethings with no ambition or future. And there is a certain amount of sly -- or, as Fetzer says, deadpan -- humor. Almost embalmed.
But it also suffers from, and in my opinion does not rise above, the problems of a low budget indie and freshman effort. Particularly annoying was the seeming lack of script, with scenes or shots holding much longer than needed, unless the purpose was to convey -- no, induce -- boredom, as in driving down the highway with cars passing to right and left. Repeatedly. And in spite of the occasional highway signs, I was often confused as to where we were or were going. Or which house we were at (one single story stucco house with Floridian vegetation looks pretty much like another to me -- sets and camera angles could have been chose to enhance clarity).
Bottom line recommendation? This may be worth seeing, but rent or borrow before buying.
Note: Amazon lists the Fox Lorber DVD as 100 minutes run time, which agrees with the basic run time given at imdb.com. However the DVD I viewed, from Wellspring Media, ran 82 minutes, close to the 81 minutes imdb gives for an Argentinian version. I can't, however, imagine how an extra 18 minutes could improve a film already in need of significant tightening up.
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