Peter Fonda is a deserter from Vietnam who has been hiding in Marrakesh. Lindsay Wagner is a fashion model who's in Marrakesh on a photo shoot. They meet on a train heading back to the US via Paris and fall in love. The catch is that Fonda is returning to the US because he's turned himself in.
This is not a bad idea for a film. In the early 70's it must have seemed like "Love Story" with a healthy dose of hip radical politics, so you can see what drew Robert Wise to it. It's a pretty bad film though, mainly because the main performances are not very good and the script is awful.
Fonda is an appealing screen presence, but he's a pretty shallow actor and he's playing a character that needs depth of feeling that he just can't provide. He's supposed to be full of regret and uncertainty about both what he's done in Vietnam and his decision to desert ... so much so that his decision to turn himself in makes some sense. Fonda is so cool and self-assured that none of this really registers, and you can't really accept the idea that he's about to go to prison for years. Wagner, in her film debut, has nothing to play off and is let down by both Fonda and the screenplay.
Boy is this screenplay bad. None of the dialogue feels like it's uttered by actual people.
Estelle Parsons is along for the ride as Wagner's travelling companion. She has very little to do.
Other than Wagner having a topless scene (which must be rare, right?) and being the only film where I've seen someone try to by marijuana from a man who's crying, the real draw here is seeing how not to make "Before Sunrise".
