Word: benton
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...COMPANY, which is finishing up an unexpectedly brief run at the Seck 57, is relatively masterful. At least its action is coherent. It also boasts a predictable nihilistic chic. If you expect a lot from Robert Benton and David Newman, the screenwriters of Bonnie and Clyde, you'll be disappointed. If you've always suspected that Arthur Penn was the real here of that effort, and that the pair never left Esquire far behind, your worst suspicious will be confirmed...
...Benton and Newman spin a yarn based on the exploits of the gangs of runaway boys who roamed the western territories in order to flee from the Civil War draft. The two heroes are Drew Dixon, an Ohio boy of sound upbringing, and Jake Rumson, a Pennsylvania wildcat, not only a runaway but a deserter. Jake, contemptuous of all authority and opinion other than his own, leads the gang Drew joins up with. And Drew, for reasons unexplained, becomes his only friend...
...course, Benton and Newman cheat themselves. The causes of Drew's change are never limned (neither are Jake's, but he's just doing what comes naturally). If the intent is not to study two representative characters, but to recreate some adventure folklore about man-child in the promised land, the failure is just as great. Everyone besides Jake and Drew is even more of a caricature. In fact, the direction is so poor that in any scene which boasts more than a few people and requires some creativity on the part of the director, half the actors' faces...
There is one unqualified success: David Huddleston's Big Joe, an aging outlaw with the fight knocked out of him, who is spare in action but effulgent in abuse, and directs his thugs like the Joe Mankiewicz who Benton and Newman once worked for (on whom the character is reportedly based). Still, there's a lot of soggy Harvey Schmidt pianoforte and vacant land-scapes and awkward tries at folksiness to go through before he meets his end. By the time he brags about being "the oldest whore on the block," it's become clear that not only Jake...
Smart and fast at its best, Bad Company too often turns arch, and its characters are self-consciously countrified, like admen going to work in bib overalls. Their dialogue has the somewhat disconcerting ring of Huckleberry Finn rewritten for New Yorker cartoon captions. Benton's direction, though, is astonishingly adept for a first feature, while Brown and Bridges make an engagingly boisterous pair. The cinematography is by Gordon Willis (The Godfather), who for reasons unknown has chosen to make everything and every one look brown...