Famous flop which on paper sounded as sure fire as anything in the mid 70s- Beatty, Nichols, Nicholson, the writer of Five Easy Pieces... with an exciting new star Stockard Channing. Where some bumbling con men kidnap an heiress in the 1920s. Sounds fun.
But it's not. They don't kidnap her, not really, she goes willingly because she's in love with Beatty and has to marry Jack Nicholson and Nicholson wants to bang her. The action is stretched over a long period - it seems like ages - when farces work better over a compressed period of time.
I was never sure what the goals of the characters were. To have sex? Make money? Why not just re-do Ransom of the Red Chief (like Ruthless People did). I couldn't tell the character differential between Beatty and Nicholson.
They don't use Channing's father and under-use Beatty's wife. Doing farce and comedy is hard - Carole Eastman doesn't do it (I know her script was rewritten). Mike Nichols' careful, classic direction lacks pace.
It's a really boring movie. It's not even attractive - most of it is shot in this dusty, deserty area.
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