Sulla strada del mito

I watched this movie because Richard Roeper said that it was a "hidden gem" and that he had offered a "money back guarantee" to anyone who didn't like the movie. He said this on an episode of "At the Movies" where Mellencamp was the guest reviewer.

Anyway...I'm not going to demand my money back from Roeper, but I thought the movie was only so-so. I agree with others who thought the beginning was much stronger than the end. I also thought that the movie didn't adequately resolve the (admittedly difficult) problem of how to convey the numbing boredom of small-town life without itself being boring.

Some good moments, but overall too clichéd and too pat an ending. I do agree that it was WONDERFUL to see the great Claude Akins and Dub Taylor.

This one was OK, more on the lines of a good made for TV movie than anything else. It was great to see Dub Taylor and Claude Akins working together one last time, though I got a kick outta their being father/son, Dub was born in '07 and Sheriff Lobo there 11 years lator.

Wonder what they thought about being directed by a rock singer? Oh well.

The film is okay for what it is, Mellencamp plays himself(gone country), not too terribly but is def. no actor. He hangs around the small town homestead, gets in a bar fight with Sheriff Lobo(dad), shoots of a gun or three, messes around with old flame Kay Lenz and drives wife Mariel Hemingway nuts. He talks about coming back to stay and his cronies say 'go back, you don't belong here, you got out, we don't want you here', more or less.

And there is a stunt involving riding in a cage of sorts in the back of a truck, kicking it off the back and watching Mellencamp go richocheting around the pavement behind said truck, caught in the bashed in cage and brush. He winds up in the hospital.

Some critics loved this-Siskel and Ebert, for example, and Peter Travers of Rolling Stone. Boston Globe thought it was okay too. Lyons, Medved and Maltin all hated it.

I sorta liked it, as a big Mellencamp fan-and will give it ** for Mellencamps decent direction and seeing Akins/Dub one last time. But the rest is only so so. Okay music too.

John Mellencamp debuts as star and director in this feature about a country-western star who returns to his home in Indiana. He's tired of the grind of performing, tired of Los Angeles, and hopes to reconnect with roots, but discovers that you can't go home again.

It's a decent little movie, low-key in its performances, with Mellencamp working off a script by Larry McMurtry, and with a good cast that includes Mariel Hemingway, Dub Taylor, Kay Lenz and Claude Akins. Mellencamp doesn't sing, but he gives a solid performance.

This was a po' boys "Pure Country". Looks like Mellencamp decided to make a movie around the time his buddy George Strait did. The result, unfortunately, was a boring look at small town America where the folks act a lot like their big city brethren. It was just a big yawn concerning husband and wife problems, with Mellencamp continually pushing his lank hair off his rather apish forehead. The boy needs to stick with what he is good at, whatever that is - it sure isn't singing.

This is a reasonably strong directorial debut for rocker Mellencamp, who also gives a good lead performance. In fact, the whole cast is quite effective, and the story moves along at an appropriate pace. Personally, I found the final scenes to be rather weak compared to the rest of the film, but even with the poor ending, I still found this to be a solid effort and a generally good movie.