Following the hints in Karina Longworth's "Polly Platt" podcast series, I've been catching up with Bogdanovich. Having seen the The Last Picture Show a couple of weeks back, I was rather impressed by that. However, in my view, this hasn't aged nearly so well.
I'm not sure whether I was ever intended to sympathise with Gazarra's character, but he and many of his fellow-travellers seemed pretty unpleasant, and the "action" was often the same. That's not necessarily fatal, but in this case, after a while the episodic nature of the scenes made me wonder whether it was heading anywhere at all, and why I should still care.
Eventually, sure enough, after a while it just ended. I suppose that for its time it was pitched as some sort of expose of the pervasive nature of sleaze and corruption, but that's hardly news these days. It was just a bit depressing really.
(NB full marks for having Rodney Bewes on board in an unlikely role - but Denholm Elliott steals the show here.)
I'm not sure whether I was ever intended to sympathise with Gazarra's character, but he and many of his fellow-travellers seemed pretty unpleasant, and the "action" was often the same. That's not necessarily fatal, but in this case, after a while the episodic nature of the scenes made me wonder whether it was heading anywhere at all, and why I should still care.
Eventually, sure enough, after a while it just ended. I suppose that for its time it was pitched as some sort of expose of the pervasive nature of sleaze and corruption, but that's hardly news these days. It was just a bit depressing really.
(NB full marks for having Rodney Bewes on board in an unlikely role - but Denholm Elliott steals the show here.)