As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.
Session: Bring Your Own Movie Month (Week 3, Dave)
Movie: Bite the Bullet (1975)
Directed by Richard Brooks
Cowboys (and one cowgirl) embark on a 700-mile horse race for a winner-take-all purse of $2,000. Horror ensues.
Reaction and Other Folderol:
The thing with Bite is that there are a lot of great scenes -- well-scripted and well-acted moments that are beautifully shot. But as a whole movie it's not as good as those individual scenes.
The cast is great. Gene Hackman, Candice Bergen, James Coburn. The list goes on. And they do a good job. But the movie is too long and meandering. And, with the exception of Hackman's and Bergen's characters, it was very hard to really hook into anything and care.
That said, there was good humor and those touching moments were very good.
The one part of the movie that bothered me most was Carbo's (Jan-Michael Vincent) turnaround. Initially an unlikeable, gratuitously nasty character, he has some kind of epiphany in the middle of the movie. Once Miss Jones (Candice Bergen) calls him out for being a poseur, he quickly becomes sweetness and light. I just don't see that happening. In reality a character like his would have doubled down on the venality.
Ratings
Me: 7
Bob-O: 9
Christina: 8.5
Joe: 10 (using his special genre scale, 9.6 in the real world)
Keith: 8.5
I came across your blog thru a reconnection with a former QC Phoenix/Quad associate. I am glad to see that you are having a good life. The QC days were pretty weird for all of us.
ReplyDeleteRitch Z