Sept. 08, 2002 - 2:15 am
one of Gwyneth Paltrow's earliest films starring James Caan, Dennis Quaid, and Meg Ryan. not an extremely attractive main cast. and then it has that disgusting white trash country flavor that has ruined too many decent stories. it seems that the filmmakers thought that because it took place in the country, that gave them license to bring on board the lowest of the low in art directors and costume designers. "in this scene we'd like to have some multi-colored chickens and a bunch of condoms on the floor for no good reason."
this movie is based around the Dennis Quaid character. as a kid he witnesses his father kill a family during a botched up home robbery. later on he is on his own, working as a maintenance man who owns and takes care of an entire county's worth of vending machines. one day he meets a young woman who's really in need of money and a ride home. the Meg Ryan character is extremely forward and obviously interested in Dennis Quaid and pushes for a relationship with him in their travels. one night when they're staying together in a hotel, the father shows up with a mysterious young lady that has caught Quaid's eye a few times previously. (James Caan and Gwyneth Paltrow). now i'm going to tell you the end of the movie since i really wouldn't recommend watching this anyway. look away if you don't want it. or just skip to the next paragraph. so it turns out that Meg Ryan is the daughter of the family that James Caan Killed and in order to keep him from "tying up loose ends," Dennis Quaid has to kill his own father.
it's interesting because the Ginnie (Paltrow) character is not really necessary to the film's story. i guess her dishonesty and dirty pool such as stealing a watch off of a dead man that she pretends to know, are just foreshadowing for her connection to James Caan. it's like her ghostly white trash presence in the film is meant to tell the audience that Dennis Quaid can't escape his father or evil in general. he can't live a happy life. actually now that i think about it, that is pretty intelligent and complex that her character exists. and she plays it so well that i can see why her performance really started to get her noticed in Hollywood.
oh and i'd like to comment on my diaryreview rating. i'm quite pleased with the rating. although i would say that it was quite obvious that i design my template myself...hence the "Created by attheshow" you'll see at the bottom left. also i'm not sure that archiving entries is really advantageous. i'm not a big fan. i mean if you know the name of something you want to look for, you can just go to the archive page and press "control-f" and then type in a few letters to find the entry you want. if stuff is archived, there are more layers to search through and that's just unnecessary. oh, and also i did go ahead and fix the "previous movie" and "next movie" links. i'll remember not to do the same thing i've been doing with those in the past that keeps causing that problem. overall i was pleased though with the 92 score.