A fourteen year old girl travelling the U.S. National Parks with her estranged father finds herself trapped in a tiny, desolate town when dad's Rambler runs out of gas. Here she becomes involved with a rebellious teenager who appears to have some dark secrets.
Director Meiert Avis ignores all the angles and possibilities of Ted Gershuny's slightly promising story and focuses on his sexy young star instead. Barrymore, just thirteen, parades around in crop tops and bikinis, but she isn't able to carry the weight that Avis requires of her. Tommy Lee Wallace's screenplay is poorly developed, which doesn't help, and his complete failure to evolve the movie's interesting characters is a disappointment. Richard Masur's "Duck" never gets a chance, and we don't even catch a glimpse of the killer's psyche. On top of all this is the see through plot. Most viewers that are half awake will manage to figure out the 'twist', long before it's even hinted at.
Performances are only reasonable (Richard Masur is an enjoyable exception) in a movie that does benefit from some tense music by composer Jonathan Elias and great cinematography from D.P. Paul Elliot, who makes the most of the desert locale. And editor Marc Grossman does an above average job with "Far From Home", considering the far from satisfying material with which he had to work - though perhaps he could have snipped a little more for our sakes.
Sunday, November 6, 1994 - T.V.
Director Meiert Avis ignores all the angles and possibilities of Ted Gershuny's slightly promising story and focuses on his sexy young star instead. Barrymore, just thirteen, parades around in crop tops and bikinis, but she isn't able to carry the weight that Avis requires of her. Tommy Lee Wallace's screenplay is poorly developed, which doesn't help, and his complete failure to evolve the movie's interesting characters is a disappointment. Richard Masur's "Duck" never gets a chance, and we don't even catch a glimpse of the killer's psyche. On top of all this is the see through plot. Most viewers that are half awake will manage to figure out the 'twist', long before it's even hinted at.
Performances are only reasonable (Richard Masur is an enjoyable exception) in a movie that does benefit from some tense music by composer Jonathan Elias and great cinematography from D.P. Paul Elliot, who makes the most of the desert locale. And editor Marc Grossman does an above average job with "Far From Home", considering the far from satisfying material with which he had to work - though perhaps he could have snipped a little more for our sakes.
Sunday, November 6, 1994 - T.V.