Promised Land

Two principles are anxious to get out of a small burg in the mid west and one refuses to leave the only place where he ever had any recognition (as a star high school athlete) and becomes a local cop. The wild card here is a drifter and borderline sociopath who nonetheless also needs something like "home", but has no idea what that is.

Played by Meg Ryan as you've never seen her. Although if you rent "Hurlyburly" you'll see what she can do with a well written part not seemingly made for her; this woman can act, but apparently would rather have Nora Ephron help her be a star and get fat deals playing variations on the same person. Rant aside, Ryan's character hooks up somewhere in the west with the most disaffected of the small-towners, played as a not very bright but enigmatic loser by Kiefer Sutherland. The pull of "home", both real and imagined, leads Kiefer and Meg back to small-burg with tragic consequences. There is a real 80's feel to this. Ennui and fear and neediness combine as America ostensibly does big things, a few people get really rich, and people like these characters instinctively know that most people, especially ones like them, have fewer prospects than their parents. Unlike me, the movie is not at all didactic, so check it out as one of the more outstanding "feel-bad" movies I've ever seen.

When I was growing up my folks had a saying for whenever I wasn't able to finish some mouth-watering dessert that I had insisted on getting: my eyes were too big for my stomach. That's how I felt about this ambitious but under-inflated would-be epic. It very much wants to be a sort of quintessential 80's picture, a final say on the tragic consequences of so-called Reagan-era greed and consumerism, but it keeps pulling up lame. Like a novice trial lawyer it falters nearly every time it tries to make its case.

Occasionally it gets things right and briefly wanders into "A Simple Plan" or "The Last Picture Show" territory, in its double-edged depiction of small town security and frustration. There's a terrific, understated scene between Jason Gedrick and Tracy Pollan as they swim in a hot spring and lazily recall some of their glory days. Kiefer Sutherland and Meg Ryan have some nice fragile moments in the desert when these two lost souls discover the joy of actually connecting, however briefly, with another human being. There are glimmers of something substantial going on here, which is what makes the whole so disappointing.

The biggest flaw is the amount of time elapsed from Gedrick's game-winning buzzer beater that kicks the story off, to a mere TWO years later, when the 4 principles are at their big "crossroads" in life. Two years is simply not long enough. The film is making the specious argument that somehow Reagan's cold-hearted policies (he appears a couple times on television making supposedly "empty", out of touch speeches) are to blame for Gedrick dropping out of school and settling for becoming a local cop, or Sutherland hitting the road because he can't live up to his nickname ("Senator") by the ripe old age of 19! Yeah, fate and that trickle down economy are really conspiring against those two, aren't they? In order for an audience to really FEEL their desperation, they need to be older with their directions in life more set in concrete. That's why "A Simple Plan" worked so well, where here it's much harder to sympathize with the lead characters. Hell, chalk it up as a bad year or two. They all still have plenty of time to right the ship.

The acting is generally okay. I thought Meg Ryan over-did the hell-raising a bit, but at least she gives the film some real jolts of energy. Gedrick pulls a classic, 4 star nutty in a kitchen at one point that would make Mickey Rourke proud. Unfortunately the writing too often lets them down. There's such a fine line between having inarticulate characters groping for words to express themselves, and the screenwriter groping to give them something meaningful and revealing to say. In this case, it sure felt like the screenwriter was doing the most groping. There's just too many "It's not you. It's me!" and "You just ... don't understand!" type lines. Many of the arguments are forced and unconvincing.

I really liked the film's collision course structure, many of its visuals (the spinning camera around the little car in the desert casts an undeniable spell) and even its bombastic score full of "end of the world" chants and that sort of thing. It was setting me up for a conclusion that I was expecting to have so much more of an impact than it ultimately did. It didn't dig deep enough, didn't flesh out its people or their world (the town is never given a personality other than generically small and sleepy) sufficiently for me to care as much as I wanted to. But I did WANT to, and perhaps that's a small accomplishment. It's certainly better than the not entirely dissimilar "Inventing The Abbotts". But if you really want to see a more successful though equally forgotten riff on these very themes check out an early Bridget Fonda flick called "Out Of The Rain".

I can't believe anyone referred to this as fluff;hate it, but no way is this fluff. It was almost creepy to me how this non-didactic near masterpiece captured a lot of what the 80's were about for most Americans by telling this seemingly simple tale of disaffected young people in some small burg in the Midwest. Of the four principles, two want to get out (only one can articulate to what, and she's hasn't convinced herself), one needs to stay because his only real defining moments were there, and the fourth is a near sociopathic drifter, who meets up with the clueless one who leave smallburg because he doesn't know what else to do. Even this character, Bev (Meg Ryan actually showing range instead of getting rich off Nora Ephron fluff she can walk thru), needs "home" in some way, and convinces clueless Danny to marry her (a great wedding scene; gives new meaning to the word "downscale") and take her to meet his folks. Former star HS athlete Hancock (Jason Gedrick), the one who couldn't leave, has become a cop and is trying to convince ex HS sweetheart Mary (Tracy Pollan) to come back and stay, and she IS conflicted, but ultimately knows she has to get away. It sounds somewhat pedestrian, but it's played to expose more than human frailty, but how we can destroy ourselves and others without ill will. It also, probably unconsciously, shows us a piece of the majority of USA that wasn't getting rich in the 80's, and in fact was struggling with diminished expectations and an increasing gap between the haves and have nots. Tom Wolfe gave us the smarmy pseudo-satire "Bonfires of the Vanities", Michael Hoffman got us a peek at what was and, to some extent, what was to be. The slowly spiralling paths of the characters in Promised Land eventually collide with tragic results. There is no salvation or redemption.-- The End Oh, you want to see Meg Ryan take another chance and come up winners, check out "Hurlyburly" and her small but memorable role in this actors' movie adapted from David Rabe's play.

All depression without any real transition as to the why? You just kind of have to accept that's just how it is once high school is over and feel their pain without any inkling of hope. Leave the knife and sleeping pills at home when you watch this one.

I do believe these characters: A cheerleader/good girl, a jock who is less of a jerk than most jocks, a totally ineffectual loser, and a trashy drifter floozy. But I still need to hear a little more in depth dialog about why they are who they are, or what they want out of life.

Other reviewers have mentioned a couple Reagan speeches in the background or some kind of political message about disappointment in the Reagan years. I see that the "lefty" Robert Redford produced this film, but I did not pick up on the whole Reagan-bashing vibe. There is one scene where the jock throws a tantrum and says, "you lied to me," but I'm not sure to whom he was talking or referring.

I was a lost soul in the 80's, but it never occurred to me to blame Reagan. My problems were entirely a combination of genes and my own decisions. The same goes for these characters.

I couldn't stand the Meg Ryan character, and I couldn't see anything to respect or like about the Sutherland character, so during their sequences, it was more like a documentary about losers. I felt no sympathy. Those two are so off-putting and ugly,they ruin the whole film.

What I did like was the gorgeous scenery and the accurate portrayal of the angst of small town youth. Growing up is scary and there's no place like home. The characters conveyed this well.

Why make it in Utah? I know that Redford lives there, but wouldn't you have to include some references to Mormonism? There was a steelmaker union sign on the main street. Were there steel mills in Utah back in the day? It was supposed to represent a generic working class small town, but nothing in Utah is generic. It's a unique place.

Tracy Pollan is five years older than Jason Gedrick and Meg Ryan is several years older than Keifer Sutherland. But I can't say that I really noticed that. I do think they were weird casting choices. A Jewish girl from Long Island as a small town Utah cheerleader? A Connecticut beauty queen type as a thief and a whore? I have faith that the jock and cheerleader will make a nice couple. She clearly has no direction in college and will find something worthwhile to do back home. He will continue as a cop. They will have a double income and produce a nice middle class life amongst their friends and family. What else is there anyways?

One thing though: Another reviewer mentioned that they should have made more than two years pass by. I agree,because two years is nothing. 20 years old is not the time to panic about your future. You can always go back to school or work for a while. Nothing at 20 needs to be forever.

The film may have made much better sense if they were all 25.