Another of Alan Rudolph's exercises in attitude and posture, or in other words in coolness and nonchalance. These are paraded this time in and around the settings and trappings of the film noir, chiefly in and around Wanda's Cafe (Genevieve Bujold doesn't look or talk much like a Wanda — more like a Nicole or a Gaby or of course a Genevieve) and the amber-hued rooms above the cafe and the beat-up mobile home parked outside, housing two country bumpkins (Keith Carradine and Lori Singer) who, with their swaddled newborn in tow, have come to the big city to find their fortune. Of course, as Rudolph has often shown before, coolness can be an easy conduit to dullness — coolness, that is, so evenly and refrigeratively maintained as to prevent any emphasis or modulation. (His customary damping devices of gray smoggy atmosphere, standoffish telephoto lenses, and drowsily drifting cameras, are liberally deployed here.) But he also shows us, as never quite before, the close connection between coolness and corniness. Kris Kristofferson, as an ex-con and ex-cop dressed all in black, walking with a pity-please limp, and dispensing such dime-novel wisdoms as "A little bit of everybody belongs in hell" and "You gotta be nice to your friends — without 'em you're a total stranger," is the prime repository of corn. And he would still be so, even if he were not betrayed by the lapses of other characters into outright spoofery. It is hard for a man to maintain his dignity in the midst of continual chuckles, especially when he himself is the major cause of them. (1985) — Duncan Shepherd
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