You needn't reach for the proverbial fine-toothed comb to locate snags. The scriptwriter, like a broken-thumbed piano player, hits nearly as many false notes as true, and there is a surfeit of misfit romanticism spread over the tarnished central trio and their -- or actually only one's -- quest to pin a murder on a corporate fat cat. John Heard, as the one, puts on a raspy buccaneer voice that seems like a very obvious and very bad idea in combination with his eyepatch and amputated arm and leg (badges of Vietnam veteranship). On the other hand, Jeff Bridges's vanity about his bronzed torso, shown off as frequently and fully as feasible, with pants slung lower than the tan line, and Lisa Eichhorn's negligence about her stringy, unwashed hair and pasty complexion, seem perfectly in character for (respectively) a part-time gigolo and a full-time lush. That these people are all slightly unlikable is not really much of a problem; the lack of clarity as to the history and chemistry of their friendship is considerably more of a one. And if the sister of the raped and murdered teenager was going to be brought into the equation, it is more than mere rudeness subsequently to drop her without so much as a fare-thee-well. Still, there is plenty to like here. Jack Nitzsche's understated music catches a nice mood of vague, melancholic apprehension, and Jordan Cronenweth's photography makes marvelous use of Santa Barbara in the midst of its Spanish Days celebrations. The mystery, till the very end, is kept indistinguishable from paranoid fantasy, and the underlying theme -- the human urge to shape the messiness of life into the straightforwardness of melodrama -- seems a potent dramatic idea, although the pistol-waving ride on a white charger at the climax takes this idea further than it probably needed to be. Directed by Ivan Passer. (1981) — Duncan Shepherd
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