The Kansas City Star from Kansas City, Missouri • 73

HOT TiCKvT MOVIES The role reversals in this buddy-road movie really sparkle MOVIE REVIEW By ROBERT BUTLER Arts and Entertainment Editor of the movie and how loose and relaxed their movements are by the end These are terrific performances Typical of films is a technical knockout The glowing colors of Adrian cinematography fairly leap off the screen and the shots are composed with a care that only points up how indifferently most of films are thrown together Uneven as it is is modestly successful because of its two fine stars and because it takes a different look at an old genre How it rates irkVi Louise a comedy-drama contains adult language violence and sexual material and is rated Running time is 2 hour 1 1 minutes SNEAK PREVIEW SUM 8PM The dirt flies SuN- The road movie is a Hollywood staple but usually the domain of cowboys crooks drifters and desperadoes in other words men Ridley is a road movie about women And while screenwriter Callie Khouri borrows shamelessly from Cassidy and the Sundance and other films the feminine emphasis imparts a fresh twist to even its most familiar elements Our heroines are two Arkansas women on a weekend joyride Louise (Susan Sarandon) is a tart-tongued waitress with a blowsy good of gal demeanor and an absentee musician boyfriend (Michael Madsen) Thelma (Geena Davis) is a housewife who maintains a perky attitude despite the perpetual bad humor of her sleazoid carpet salesman husband (Christopher McDonald) While Louise is brassy and pleasantly tough Thelma is naive and unassertive afraid to ask her permission she sneaks off while at work The two jump into T-Bird convertible but they make it past the county line before trouble strikes Stopping at a roadside honky-tonk they blow off steam with several drinks Thelma gets tipsy flirts with a smarmy guy (Timothy Carhart) and is soon being assaulted on the hood of a car The pistol-wielding Louise saves her when the surly would-be rapist gives his ungentlemanly opinion of this turn of events Louise pulls the trigger And off "Thelma follows these two through adventures that range from the wildly comic to the dramatic and erotic They pick up a polite-as-pie young cowboy (Brad Pitt) who turns out to be an ex-con Between romantic interludes he advises them on the etiquette of larceny properly armed robbery have to be a totally unpleasant then leaves them penniless Taking matters into her own hands Thelma robs a market She is amazed at her transformation from mouse to cool-as-a-cucumber bandit but Louise sees it as a growing experience the first chance ever had to really express she says encouragingly Meanwhile an Arkansas state police officer (Harvey Keitel) monitors their crime spree across the Southwest with a combination of bemusement at their antics and concern as the felonies pile up past the point of no return is an unlikely project for director Scott who has always been more at home with slick surfaces than with human relationships not quite deft enough to finesse a downbeat ending or to gloss over the script's simplistic exclamation points The men in this film are caricatures of thuggish beer-breathed boors and one has to wonder what feminist message is being sent when women ape the most violent tendencies of the opposite sex Still the engaging interplay between his two stars and a liberal dose of raunchy redneck humor mark a big step forward in stylistic arsenal The performances walk a fine line between reality and the patently absurd Sarandon and Davis are absolutely convincing as our road-burning fugitives and the characters seem to visibly grow in stature and depth as they kiss their pasts goodbye and determine to live for the moment The two physically evolve as the movie progresses Part of this is effective makeup they go from coiffed and blush-on to sunburned noses and wind-tangled hair as they become feral But there's more to it than just that watch how tightly they carry themselves at the beginning Sally Kevin Robert and Whoopi my FIELD KUNE DOWNEY GOLDBERG PARAMOUNT PICTURES present? an AARON SPELLINGALAN GRE1SMAN prodiciion a MICHAEL HOFFMAN film CATHY M0R1ARTY SOAPDISH ELISABETH SHUE ALAN SILVESTRI ZSJOEL FREEMAN and VICTORIA WHITE KXK HERBERT ROSS ROBERT HARLING and ANDREW BERGMAN ROBERT HARLING S( REENPUl 1 Bl Ml SIC Bl PRODI ED AARON SPELLING and ALAN GREISMAN wtTS MICHAEL HOFFMAN I DOLBY Ik SELECTED THEATRES A PARAMOUNT PICTURE PG13 PARENTS STRONGLY CAUTIONED Sow Material May Be lnpproprite for Children Undf 13 PARAMOUNT COMMUNICATIONS COMPANY im "iPYiiiHi worn putuoi pirn its miuhtmimiwh v' 753-2626 474-4AMC 649-7500 763-1563 373-0400 METRO NORTH PLAZA GLENWOOD BANNISTER MALL BLUE RIDGE EAST OUTSIDE THE MALL 47TH A VVANDQTTE 91 ST 4 METCALF 11-435 4 BANMSTER RD '70 HWy 4C Brad Pitt plays a hitchiker in Thelma Coming to theatres everywhere on Friday May 3L Fridav May 24 1991 The Kansas City Star G-9.