Even with the fact that it's in the recent Martin Scorsese collection, this film's board is still barren...why? I thought it was a great Prohibition-era crime film, forshadowing his future crime movies. Anyone else's opinion?
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There are some shots preceding the credits that I grimace when I see--the pilot and the landowner are particularly bad at delivering their lines. Just not tight enough editing. But there are flashes of genius, the overlapping railroad images, the guy who goes "bullshi_!" after the credits, Barbara Hershey...I would have favored it in black and white, maybe not the whole time.
About 20 minutes in it starts to become uncompelling. It basically shows that Scorcese didn't know his song well before he started singing it.
This is on DVD from MGM.
At the risk of getting slammed for it, I did not like the movie. Maybe it is just me, I kept waiting for something more to happen. I bought the DVD based on favorable reviews and I knew it was before Scorcese found his style. Watching some hold-ups, watching them escape, watching a train go by, a matter of time before they are caught, a matter of time when they will escape. I kept telling myself, 'a plan' was going to occur, but it never did. I watched the whole movie, and I wanted to like it, but it never clicked for me. It was hard for me to like the Barry Primus character and the David Carradine character. But I'm not here to bash the movie, I would like to know why other people liked it. This movie has been compared to "Bonnie and Clyde", another movie that I didn't like. I like a lot of movies that other people hate, so this one is on me....but someone tell me what it is that made them like it so much. I just want some feedback.
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I'm a huge fan of this film. It's got a lot going for it: the flavorsome bluesy score, excellent lead performances by Barbara Hershey and David Carradine, frequent outbursts of exciting action, a tasty and vivid evocation of the Great Depression period, the uncompromisingly downbeat ending, a gritty and unsentimental depiction of the outlaw lifestyle. Granted, it's a tad rough around the edges, but overall a really solid and satisfying film. I give it an 8 out of 10.
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I really disliked it. I found it extremely uninteresting and I could barely sit through it. I was literally counting the minutes down as it neared the end.
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I did not know this was Scorsese and really liked it, especially the score. Interesting that someone mentioned Bonnie and Clyde on here, because I kept thinking, 'This is kind of like an arthouse B & Clyde'. I could see how having expectations too high could ruin this movie though. That's why I think not knowing Scorsese did this helped me enjoy the artistry of it and overlook its shortcomings.
shareI liked it alot better than his later "crime" movies, and would put them in totally different categories. I will take this over 2hrs of steriotypical cliched gangsters talking ad nausiam any day of the week.
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Agree, this movie is underrated. As I type this, 'Boxcar Bertha' has the same rating than 'Transformers 2', go figure!
I reckon that it ain't the best Scorsese film. Actually is one of his lesser works, but I'd be damned if most filmmakers wouldn't give an arm or a leg in order to have in their filmography a film like this one.
Essentially a second rate Bonnie & Clyde knock-off - not bad, but not really that good, either. Nice piece of warm-up jogging for Mean Streets and all those other things.
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