I saw this movie at my girlfriends aunt's place this past weekend, and I must say that it was an all around bad film. It had potential to be a decent to good family film about dealing with tragic loss for both father and daughter, but in stead it came across as a thinly veiled animal rights advert. Even the music was poorly handled, the sound track seemed to range from schmaltzy hallmark commercial stuff to over the top and melodramatic, not to mention that it was actually edited into the film poorly(at some points the music almost drowned out the dialogue), which pulls the viewer out of the film and probably only hurt the acting which was already on life support.
The story itself seemed altogether forced, the mother dies at the beginning because she needs to reach something in the back seat, so she unbuckles her seat belt and stops watching the road. I was left feeling less bad about the mother dying and more thinking that she stupidly risked her husband and daughters life as well as other nearby motorists just to do something irrelevant. Why not have the car get plowed into by a drunk driver who runs a red light or something else equally tragic and realistic?
***SPOILER*** There were also these sub-plots about this tainted animal feed and the decision to put down this little girls favorite dog on the ranch which didn't seem to serve any purpose other than to waste time. And then there was the part where Peter Coyote orders one of his ranch hands to DROWN A LITTER OF PUPPIES, seriously that's the kind of thing they put in bad Stephen Segal movies to make the bad guy even more evil.
Finally, and this is just a nitpick, but Jason London looked like he belongs on the sex offender registry with his greasy looking hair and scraggly goatee.
All around I was left thinking that the biggest tragedy wasn't the little girls mothers death, but that this would stand as the last film in Peter Boyle's otherwise remarkable career. Fortunately for him, unlike Raul Julia in Street Fighter, most people won't remember this movie.
The story itself seemed altogether forced, the mother dies at the beginning because she needs to reach something in the back seat, so she unbuckles her seat belt and stops watching the road. I was left feeling less bad about the mother dying and more thinking that she stupidly risked her husband and daughters life as well as other nearby motorists just to do something irrelevant. Why not have the car get plowed into by a drunk driver who runs a red light or something else equally tragic and realistic?
***SPOILER*** There were also these sub-plots about this tainted animal feed and the decision to put down this little girls favorite dog on the ranch which didn't seem to serve any purpose other than to waste time. And then there was the part where Peter Coyote orders one of his ranch hands to DROWN A LITTER OF PUPPIES, seriously that's the kind of thing they put in bad Stephen Segal movies to make the bad guy even more evil.
Finally, and this is just a nitpick, but Jason London looked like he belongs on the sex offender registry with his greasy looking hair and scraggly goatee.
All around I was left thinking that the biggest tragedy wasn't the little girls mothers death, but that this would stand as the last film in Peter Boyle's otherwise remarkable career. Fortunately for him, unlike Raul Julia in Street Fighter, most people won't remember this movie.