City Slickers
This mid-life crisis comedy, with a story written by its star Billy Crystal, has a little bit of good and a little bit of bad. A big part of the good is in the performance by Jack Palance as the trail boss for a bunch of vacationing yuppies going on a cattle drive: Never wearing out his welcome and getting one delightful scene after another (mostly with Crystal), the film never quite regains its stride after his characterâs early exit. Regardless, it picked up a long-overdue Oscar for Palance, an actor whom, like his character, was a dying breed: A legendary, credible performer who had no qualms about appearing in any type of movie, big or small, simply because of the fact that he loved to work so much. Crystal for his part contributes one of his more nuanced performances, even though his use of the âHello?â catchphrase is very overdone; Daniel Stern also registers well as the best friend at the end of his rope who goes along for the trip after his personal and professional life has pretty much been wiped out, enabling him to pull some off some pretty funny yet touching moments thanks to the good script; ultimately, Bruno Kirby proves to be easily the weakest of the three leads: As the gung-ho he-man member of the group always trying to get his buddies on these vacations to try to recapture their youth, Kirby tries too hard to capture the feeling of camaraderie with Crystal and Stern and ultimately comes off as disingenuous and smug and, with the exception of his description of the best (and worst) day of his life, gives a performance of a guy whom the viewer wouldnât want to be hanging around with all that much, even as the script laughably tries to portray him as a ladiesâ man; Helen Slater, long removed from her heyday as Billie Jean and Supergirl, tries to be sweet as the single girl on the trip, but really comes across as a blank slate; David Paymer and Josh Mostel as the ice cream tycoon brothers try a little too hard as well, but their brand of humor also falls flat; the early scenes of the film provide some good comic fodder for character actors like Jeffrey Tambor, Robert Costanzo, and Yeardley âLisa Simpsonâ Smith, and even Jake Gyllenhaal pops up here as Crystalâs precocious son. Then there is Norman, the baby calf whom Crystal and Palance help give birth to whom Crystal ultimately adopts as his own: This beautiful little thing gives us one of the best and most endearing animal performances ever, and nearly redeems the last third of the movie. There is the slight question of credibility in the idea of a vacation business being run this way (basically for regular people to live out their western cowboy masturbation fantasy), particularly with the issue of liability especially considering the âreal life cowboysâ who are in charge of the cattle drive, who drink, sexually harass the female tourist, and physically assault another tourist (I would sue this business owner for eight figures if I were in their shoes), as well as the idea (put forth by Palance) that the âsecret of lifeâ is whatever you want it to be being rather pretentious on the part of the screenwriters. Still, not a bad movie, just not a comedy masterpiece as so many at the time of its release hailed it to beâŚ
7/10