Kansas

Wow, hard to imagine the positive reviews for this misbegotten turkey. The script makes a hash of character and motivation: unbelievable that anyone would do the things these characters do or speak the cliche lines they are given. Small town Kansans are treated like idiot rubes. Writer does not seem to know how to end the story, so tacks on a ridiculous wrap-up.

Director seems to cut to moody shots of farm machinery whenever he can't figure out what else to do. Special mention for a soundtrack that is a crime against humanity.

Dillon does Dillon (broody and crazy), McCarthy does McCarthy (inappropriate awkward grins). No other actors even register.

Except for a gratuitous and cringeworthy sex scene, feels like a poor basic cable TV movie. By the end, I was actually angry at how bad it was.

Good enough. Matt Dillon does a great sociopath. If you know or want to know something about the mid-west, Kansas, Nebraska, small farming towns, then it's worth the watching. Filmed on locations that look real, are real, with a reasonably realistic portrayal of that life. It's a cheap rental if you can find it and a better waste of your time than the latest "reality show". They want ten lines of text for a comment, which explains to some degree, why there is so much drivel in the user comments that you find in IMDb. It doesn't take that much text to give you an idea of whether or not you'll like a film, really. Like crime drama? With a "just out of prison sociopath" that you'd really not like to meet? Then you'd likely enjoy this. If you've got any Midwestern farmer roots, you might also like it. I said that before I got to the significant "Ten Lines of Text..."

The two lead actors Andrew McCarthy and Matt Dillon did an admirable job in their roles as two drifters who by happen stance meet while freeloading on a moving train through Kansas. I really enjoyed the opening 10 minutes of the film and the Director's (David Stevens) use of the wheat combines chomping through a Kansas wheat field as the opening credits rolled along. I believed I was in for a pretty good film. Within the first 30 minutes a lot had occurred which I do not want to spoil for the viewers who have not yet watched the film so no spoiler alert is required.

As the plot progresses and the two lead characters roles emerge Doyle Kennedy (Matt Dillon) as the alpha male and his unsuspecting accomplice Wade Corey (Andrew McCarthy) continue on their mini crime spree it does not take them long to realize that they need to go their separate ways to avoid arrest and they agree to meet up later.

Doyle being a bit psychotic without a conscience wants to have a few drinks and connect with an old girlfriend. While Wade is looking for a way to continue his route to New York where he is expected as the Best Man at his friends wedding. So Wade stumbles upon a farm that is willing to give him a couple of weeks work in the wheat fields. Wade falls for the bosses daughter and he finds himself in a dilemma with his recent new criminal associate Doyle who wants to get the money they stole and move on out of town. Unfortunately for Doyle his criminal past and his distinguishing features (duh Wade!) leave the local police with an easy target to re-apprehend him.

The latter half of the film was predictable and a bit hokey. I thought because of the strong performances and cinema appeal of the first half of the film that maybe the production ran out of time and/or money and so a different director may have been used to complete the film. Since the first half of the film was so appealing I felt the latter half was a bit of a let down by the director David Stevens.

As a result I have rated the film a 6 out of 10. It is worth watching still but don't expect a great ending to a film that started off very strong.

Where was most of this movie taped at? I know the Tee-Pee gas station scene was shot at Us HWY 24/40 AND 59 in Lawrence, Ks, and a lot of the other scenes where also shot not far away in Leavenworth County and Douglas County. I live close by, in Leavenworth County. I like seeing movies that have been tape close by kinda like Article 99 which was taped mostly in downtown Kansas City, Mo. I know a lot of stand ins from my area where a part of this movie. The chase scenes and other driving scenes where shot in the rural areas around Desoto,Ks. Not a bad movie, I like it because it was based on a robber in my home state. I wish movie makers would start doing this again more, taking their movies into the heartland and into other locations to film. There where a few more movies that I know that where shot around here, but I can't remember them right off. Still a good movie to watch, and or buy.

I'm only giving this six stars because the two leads are true legends, and Brynn Thayer as Connie is so unbelievably gorgeous in her every single scene in this movie, it can't be less than a six.

But this movie doesn't make sense in a lot of ways.

This is another one of those Hollywood productions that comes along every now and then, even then, that tries to show us how Americans not on a coast, live, work and think.

And it usually doesn't work.

And it certainly doesn't seem authentic or real.

This is also, yet again, another movie that proves the actors, no matter how great they are, are only as good as the material they are provided with.. Is Andrew McCarthy supposed to be salt of the earth or a scoundrel, or is he the Great Gatsby?

For most of this movie we can never tell and it's confusing and unconvincing in all directions.

Matt Dillon can play mean but here it just doesn't seem right.

The ladies all look way to dry, clean and made up with their hair down to be riding on horseback out in the backwoods somewhere.

It's funny because it seems the Brat Pack, at least some members of it were all taking grittier-sounding scripts and parts in this era to maybe distance themselves from that image.

You had Emilio Estevez and Demi Moore in Wisdom (1986).

You also had Judd Nelson and Ally Sheedy in Blue City (1986).

And then you have this. Though I don't consider Matt Dillon part of that group.

The actions of these characters just doesn't seem believable. Then or now.

Certainly there is much behavior in 80's films that seems creepy or even stalker-ish.

Then it was portrayed as romantically persistent.

There are often tiny actions taken here by characters here that is simply unsafe in any era.

Turning your back on a stranger.

Being alone with a stranger. Even provocative.

No.

Doesn't make sense when you try to dose it in reality and not just an actress with a leading man.

And the editing leads much to be desired.

A character is drinking with somebody at a bar. Next scene, he's under a bridge with that person stripped down to the skivvies.

Wait.

What?

What happened?

What's going on here?

We're not in Kansas anymore.

Or are we?

This was a total waste of Dillon and McCarthy in their prime.

McCarthy, coincidentally enough, has a documentary coming out soon about the Brat Pack called, Brats (2024).