Estranhos Encontros

It's a different kind of movie about coming of age. Dermot Mulroney is great as are most of the cast. Dermot Mulroney is a working-class, high school boy whose time to grow up has come.

Not a formula film in any way that I can tell. A great cast. Lili Taylor, Sam Shepard, Delroy Lindo, Mary Kay Place, Benjamin Bratt (not his best performance perhaps), Will Patton, Burt Young.

The ending was great, in my opinion. In fact, what said it all for me was at the end of the film, the change in the expression of Dermot Mulroney's face as he sat in the back of the pickup. I thought the acting was good. A strange movie, I grant you, but I feel it was well worth the watch.

I saw this movie a couple of years ago. Recently I picked up a copy not remembering I had already seen it. I was about 15 to 20 minutes into the film when it began looking familiar and I realized I had, ergo, why I say its not one you would remember. The plot was some what off beat and you wonder just how much trouble Dermot Mulroney's character can innocently get into; he seems to attract it like honey does flies. Growing up is part of life and it is seen some what here as a young man transitions into manhood, all be it, Mulroney was 28 when he played the part. Several actors did not appear to be of an age near the individual characters they portrayed; specifically, the mother and aunt of Mulroney's character. I found this somewhat distracting. While okay to watch once, I was not that thrilled the second time around.

This was one of the most worthless movies I have ever seen. The acting was bad, the plot was worse, and the script was pathetic. The only thing remotely interesting was beautiful Lili Taylor. Too bad she was in such a dog of a movie.

There is no accounting for taste and yes, a movie has to entertain first or not much is happening for the viewer, but one has to wonder about the general sensitivity of some of these negative reviews after watching the quality of acting and the story unfolding in Bright Angel. You generally don't find the quality of cast throughout found here (although it's surprising how many mediocre films Sam Shepard has managed to make). I found the movie believable and based on the reality of the hardscrabble life surrounding the oil fields of Wyoming and Billings, Montana where it was filmed. It's an evocative piece of film and very well directed.

Congrats, this was the worst movie I was ever unfortunate enough to see (and I've seen a lot). Acting sucked, script sucked, and if there had BEEN a plot that would have sucked too. I don't blame the actors, they didn't have much to work with. This just stumbled into every single trap it could have stumbled into. The kicker? The *ending*...what the hell was that?