Cross Country

Someone is a killer. In New York a brutal murder leaves a beautiful young woman dead in her bedroom. By the time the corpse is discovered in a pool of blood, her estranged husband is on the way to Arizona after an angry confrontation between the two. Is he the killer - the cops think so - or is it the sexy babe who he picks up in a bar? Or maybe the handsome odd-ball that hitches a ride? Alliances change and the plot twists as they drive from the east coast to the Grand Canyon - an obsessed cop in pursuit.

The plot twists and weird relationships will keep you on the edge of your seat.

Although set entirely in America (a violent road trip from Philadelphia to Arizona), this is very obviously a Canadian film directed by Paul Lynch, the hoser who did "Prom Night" and "Humongous", and featuring a whole roster of Canadian character actors. It starts with the bloody murder of a prostitute in Philly. The main suspect, a local businessman (Richard Beymer) suddenly leaves town for Arizona. Along the way he meets a stripper (Nina Axelrod) and later picks up her and a male friend (Brent Carver) hitchhiking. The relationship between the stripper and the male friend is a little ambiguous, but it doesn't take long for Beymer's character to start schtupping Axelrod's. A romantic triangle develops for awhile (and a suspicious Beymer roughs up the other male at one point). They later stop at a bar on the Mississipi River and Carver's character tries to add a fourth member to the party, a woman of easy virtue played by Robert Weiss. Meanwhile, the main trio is being pursued by such Canadian character actor/heavies as Michael Ironside and Arthur Schellenberger.

This is one of those offbeat thrillers where pretty much EVERYONE acts suspicious, and it's hard to figure out until the very end exactly what the hell is really going. Still, while it's perhaps not a high compliment, this is generally a more successful film than Paul Lynch's two more famous ones. The American star Richard Beymer is perhaps best known today for his work with another Lynch, David Lynch, in his seminal TV series "Twin Peaks" (he was also earlier in this thing called "West Side Story"). Nina Axelrod had a brief career in 80's low-budget/genre fare, but I still always manage to get her confused with 80's MTV "VJ" Nina Blackwood or 80's porn star Nina Hartley. Although she was always a supporting actress, nubile Canadian cutie Roberta Weiss was always pretty memorable--as a victim of the Castle Rock Killer in David Cronenberg's "The Dead Zone", as a reform-school girl who gets a spanking in "Autumn Born", and as teen witch who seduces her teacher in an episode of the Canadian-lensed anthology series "The Hitchhiker". (Just for the record, Weiss spends about half her screen time here lolling around topless on a bed as Carver tries to induce her into a three-way with Axelrod while Beymer looks on). The most famous actor today, however, is no doubt Michael Ironside, but he has a relativey small role here.

At the moment this film seems relegated to the VHS graveyard with a DVD release anytime soon looking pretty unlikely. Still as 80's-era Canadian tax shelter products go, this isn't too bad, and it certainly deserves at least a LITTLE better of a fate.

If there was ever a movie that had style, this is it... all the way through. I first saw this movie when I was fourteen with my friend. There was a lesbian scene in the latter part of my movie. I remember my Mum saying to my friend who was two years younger, "Should you really be watching this". My eyes were literally glued to the screen. It would've taken the forces of nature to pull em' off. This is one of those movies that doesn't hold back and boldly goes where a lot of others don't, whether violence, sex, nudity. One example that springs straight to mind is a stripper/dancer, flaunting her big and I mean big... you know, near the start of the movie, where successful ad exec, Evan Bley, (old veteran actor Beymer) is having one last drink, before leaving Philly and going cross country through beautiful Canada. Why? He's just tired and needs a break from his job. Or is he the one who's committed this ghastly murder, and I do mean GHASTLY, (even by old day standards) of his ex lover/model/girlfriend/high class call girl, some other names I could mention, mostly unsavory. Accompanying him on his trip, after things get a bit ugly back at the bar, is part time stripper, budding model/actress, Lois and her loser musician friend, John, played with dynamic believability by the great Brent Carver. This movie has a real sense of danger and menace, mostly due to Beymer's character. Is he really the psycho who did the girl? Footnote: I must admit I was shocked who the killer was, but I'll leave that up to you to decide. Moving on, enter hot shot detective, Ed Roersch, the cool Michael Ironside, before he made a name for himself. He has his own reasons for going after Beymer, and they're all selfish too. First, before jetting off and catching up with Beymer, he has make a few calls, question suspects and associates, some real dubious and sleazy types, including an old private investigator who stumbled across the murder scene. You'll remember this guy as the bartender in that other Canadian thriller, Stone Cold Dead. Get this, this PI sleeps in crummy motels, keeps dirty mags, and likes to steal jewellery off dead people, and is LOA-DED! and as Ironside's character tells him, heartlessly, while interrogating him, "You need your mouth washed" Those words precede Ironside, getting physical by literally ramming this guy's head down a toilet bowl, but having the decency to flush it, afterwards. As in thriller form, Cross Country has been plotted very well. It's a tight, compact little movie, that manipulates you-Suspect one here, suspect two there. It really works. That's what a good thriller is, and that this is. That lesbian sex scene is a killer. It always stays with me. I couldn't quite believe it when I first viewed it. A classic scene ending, is where Ironside's rental car, that Beymer steals, goes off a cliff of the real Grand Canyon, and plummets for hundreds of meters, before becoming dreck, fantastically shot against a great Chris Rea Soundtrack. He provides other tracks to the movie also. Another plus. Also the scene with Beymer, stripping off Lois's clothes (eye candy, Nina Axelrod-Motel Hell) in the motel room, is interesting in the fact, to when does rape end, and pleasure begin. Meanwhile, John, solo, is going crazy outside, managing to break into the motel with his little flick knife and stealing a coke out of it's vendor. This movie doesn't deserve to be knocked the way it has. Hopefully you will look beyond the bad reviews, and make up your own mind. So, collect your honey and sit down to a thrilling and engrossing night of viewing. It'll be worth believe me. Cross Country rules. And so does it's striking front cover.

**Possible Spolers ahead**

Crazed ad exec Richard Beymer heads west with stripper Nina Axelrod and drifter Brent Carver in tow. A hooker has been butchered back on the East Coast and all signs point to Beymer so you know he probably didn't do it--which doesn't stop corrupt cop Michael Ironside from going to shake him down. Beymer goes through the entire picture with a look of perpetual pain on his face--as will any viewers who enjoyed Herbert Kastle's 1975 novel. The book was not only pornographic but full of severed limbs and spilled guts to the point where you had to wash the blood off your hands after reading it. In spite of some R-rated sexcapades and violence the film is a kiddie cartoon by comparison. Toning it down for an R was a necessary evil considering the power of the MPAA but scripters Logan N. Danforth and William Gray made too many arbitrary changes and took too many detours from Kastle's original plot.

When I make my fortune I'll buy the rights to remake CROSS COUNTRY, follow the book to the letter and shoot for an NC-17. I'll hang on to my copy of the 1983 travesty in the meantime, if only because Ms. Axelrod is so darn easy on the eyeballs.