Three for the Road

I remember this movie fondly.A close friend of mine had begged me to see this so I did-it's not bad! Three for the road is actually very funny in parts and most people who like road movies will probebly like this. The humer is there and the cast creates lots of fun antics and cheeky dialogue. If I had one criticism it's that the ovie plays it to safe and doesn't really do anything unique-a couple of times it DID begin to drag. I wouldn't call this any great shakes in the comedy department but it's fun, a light breezy movie that's certainly not awful.

Boring, isn't it? Well this movie is no exception. Everyone does a good job, especially Kerri Green (as always), but the story just isn't really there. In fact the movie really isn't too bad before they get in a car. But seeing three people drive just isn't too exciting. Not that bad of a movie but try "Lucas" or "Breakfast Club" or "Goonies" instead.

I saw this film in 1987, or maybe it was 1988, and my friends and I laughed hysterically because this film is so awful! It's one of those movies that are so bad they are hilarious. Favorite line: Sally Kellerman telling her ex-husband, "You so much as breathe a word of this, and I'll have your d*** in a pencil sharpener!" I also found one scene to be disturbing...a black man who is hauling a load of live chickens stops to help, and ends up with his truck @ chickens tumbling down a steep hill. While the main characters speed off, this poor man has lost his truck and his chickens. The main characters then laugh. Alan Ruck ("Spin City") sarcastically declares that he feels sorry for "those chickens." This film is a disaster, directed by the brilliant B.W.L. Norton ("More American Graffiti," "Baby: Secret Of The Lost Legend.") This movie seems to try to recapture the spirit of the Bob Hope-Bing Crosby "road" movies, but fails miserably. When this came out on video, I decided to watch it again, thinking that I might have missed something. I watched the video with my mom. My mom, approaching her sixties, said that this was the kind of movie kids used to watch back in the 40's and 50's. Enough said. NOTE: Alot of people are mistaken. This film was made and shelved BEFORE Charlie Sheen starred in Oliver Stone's "Platoon." It was only released after "Platoon" was a hit.

I wrote this movie. It was my first major film, and I went to the set to visit while they were shooting it in Arkansas. Charlie Sheen, who had just starred in "Platoon" told me he loved the script, but what they were shooting was .. well, let's just say rewritten. I thought he was exaggerating, until I told my friends to meet me at the Egyptian theater in Hollywood for the opening weekend. 3000 seat theater - and only 8 people attended the 8 p.m. show. I hated it. I hated the reviews it got, it made me decide that if my movie was going to get screwed up, I was going to direct it, and at least I'd be responsible for it. So, for better or worse, that's what I've been doing since then. However, I have some nostalgia for this piece - its genesis was seeing Senator Moynihan's daughter dancing on a bar in Cambridge when I went to college. The original story was about a Senator's daughter who is ruining his re-election bid by staging protests. He decides to send her to a reform school and assigns his young up and coming assistant to do the job. His roommate is a stringer for a Washington rag, and he begs to come along. Along the way the daughter escapes multiple times, but mainly wants to find her mom - who abandoned her father. She thinks its because the mom agrees with her politics; I thought Dabney Coleman would have been the perfect Senator. It runs out her mom was just 'getting high' too much when she was in college, got pregnant and didn't want to have a family. Depressed with the truth, the daughter decides to shape up and take reform school in stride. By the end, she's transformed the Senator's assistant, who's fallen in love with her and won't let her compromise her principles. There's a twist at the end, but basically it was a rip off of my former boss Robert Towne's brilliant take on "The Last Detail." This was my "Last Detail." Sorry it's not better than it is, but now you know the truth. Rich Martini

Paul Tracy (Charlie Sheen) is an aide to his hero Republican US Senator Kitteredge (Raymond J. Barry) who is aiming for the White House. He meets Kitteredge for the first time and is given the task to drive his delinquent daughter Robin (Kerri Green) to be hidden away in an institution. She is sedated and he gets his roommate T.S. (Alan Ruck) to come along. She keeps trying to escape and telling them disturbing stories about the Senator. Robin and Paul fall for each other. She escapes and picks up Missy who is running away from stupid Junior. Robin is trying to find her absent mother Blanche (Sally Kellerman).

It's too bad that Kerri Green fades away after this movie. She had a couple of great movies in the 80s. I wish she got a few more opportunities. She is as cute as ever in this movie even with her crazy hairdo. The three young actors are good. The story is a little bit awkward. It's not all funny since it's a little bit of a kidnapping. The romance works only because of the two young actors.