Blue Desert

This movie should win an award for dumbest female protagonist. It's hard to have any sympathy for the Cortney Cox character, Lisa, because every time she is given an opportunity to avoid a threat, she decides to remain. She has a million opportunities to leave this town and the two nuts who are threatening her, but she remains. You have to wonder if Lisa has any shred of common sense because time after time she does the exact opposite of what common sense would dictate.

If being an empowered woman means staying in a mobile home in the desert in a town of strangers and continually letting strange men into your home even when you know they are dangerous and never asking your neighbors for help, then the life span of such a woman is going to be very short.

Comic book artists have very tight deadlines that they must meet each month.

It was amazing to see Lisa working calmly at her drawing board, pencilling, inking and lettering a complete comic while spending her days and nights being nearly raped, chased across the desert in her Chevette by a police cruiser and sticking a 5 inch knife in a police officer's thigh.

All in a days work for "EMPOWERED WOMAN" I guess.

Lisa Roberts has been raped, so she leaves New York for her aunt and uncle's trailer in the desert community of Oneida. She lives there alone with her relatives' birds, but helpful neighbor Walter is next door with his wife Emily.

Lisa is the illustrator for Iron Medusa comic books. While she is working on her art in a restaurant, she meets Randall, who likes her work (later we learn his daughter, who died in an accident, was a big fan of Iron Medusa). They become friends. Randall rides a motorcycle and enjoys the great outdoors, but he hates living in a small town where everyone knows everyone else's business. Though he explains he is living on disability and taking short-term work, he says his goal is to move to San Francisco and renovate houses.

Randall wants to move his relationship with Lisa to the next level, but she is not ready because of her recent traumatic experience. What happens next brings Deputy Steve Smith into the picture. He is very nice and suspicious of Randall.

Something strange is going on in this town. It may involve Joe and another man Lisa sees outside the trailer.

There's not anything really special about this movie, though Lisa is confident and determined while never completely overcoming her nervousness, and she has plenty of reasons to be scared. Lisa's art (according to the credits, Matthew Nelson's) is really good and probably has real therapeutic value because she can pretend to dispose of the villains in her life. In reality, it is not that easy. (By the way, I'm not interested in comic books or their art.)

Courtney Cox, D. B. Sweeney and Craig Sheffer all give good performances. The circumstances provide us with the occasional chilling moment, and the obligatory creepy music shows up from time to time. Most importantly, a number of plot twists keep us constantly guessing. There is more violence than I would have liked, and obviously some sexual content--not necessarily of a violent nature.

I was disappointed by the ending. I'm sure nothing significant was edited out, but it seemed to me the writers dug themselves a hole and then found a white rabbit with a pocket watch.

This was a pretty good thriller.

I first saw 'Blue Desert' by chance on a late TV show and I liked so much I rented it twice on video, although I had missed the first scenes and didn't know its title.However, every time I've talked to friends about this movie, it looks like they haven't even heard about it. And it's a shame because in my opinion this is one of the best thrillers of the decade, much better than the overrated 'Silence of the lambs' and 'Wild things', but somehow it seems that it never attracted the attention it deserved.

The plot and direction are (almost) flawless, the suspense builds on from the first until the last minute and Courteney Cox makes a top-quality performance.

However, I would still advise everyone to give this movie a chance because it's definitely worth it.

(My Rating: 8/10)

I would totally agree with the review made by the guy before me. This movie really has everything going for it. I was very impressed with the story line & plot as well as the great acting by Cox and Sweeny among others. I would ask anyone who likes thriller flicks to go and rent this you won't be in for something boring and predictable.

Courtney COX, (does a nude scene you get to see her nubs) plays a comic book writer (every fan-boys wet dream) who gets raped. She reports it to the police, and a Sipowicz style detective mocks her for being raped before. So she packs up her self up and moves out to a secluded trailer in the desert. She's immediately set upon by the village idiot. He gets chased away by the deputy who while protecting her seduces her. As things don't sync-up with the deputy she wonders who's really stalking her the Deputy or town fool. All of which gets written into her comic book. A while ago I watched "DOGVILLE" where Nicole KIDMAN is raped over and over by the townsfolk. Those who can't get a piece of KIDMAN she has to drag around on a heavy metal stockade. That's what this film should've been this joyless kind of thrilling movie missed on so many levels. It's not an empowering woman movie where she finds the strength through her character and ordeal to go on. Its not a don't judge a book by the cover as the cops the criminal and the criminal the hero. Its just goes no-where does nothing and you like just bend her over already. Since you're not gonna do anything meaningful, or better with the assembled cast mise well turn it into a sexploitation film.