Word: film
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Anyone can guess what happens to the film's three principals once Redford galvanizes himself. Boy gets horse. Girl gets story (and also ceases to be merely a pesky observer and becomes an impassioned participant in Sonny's adventure). The populace learns the truth about the evil capitalists and rallies to the side of the beleaguered rebels. Why, boy and girl even get each other, if briefly. It's a story as old as talkies-dating back to Frank Capra's populist comedies...
Still, the film probably works so well because of Redford. Oh, due credit to Fonda: here, in direct contrast to the development of a similar character in The China Syndrome, she moves from knowledgeability to vulnerability, and does it with the same winning grace. But Redford, making his first major appearance in almost four years, is in top form. He's a knothead, trying to disguise his essentially moral nature and his native shrewdness with a lot of good-ole-boy aw shucksing. There is tension, good observation and fine comic timing in his work...
...obvious both stars saw this film as a vehicle to advocate causes they care about, but they are good-natured about it. Writer Garland and Director Pollack had the sense to give Horseman the tone of a pop fable; they stress entertainment over preachment. A romantic intensity that Fonda and Redford might have generated is lost as a result; there could have been more electricity between the electric horseman and his lady. And Willie Nelson, the great country singer, is wasted in his first acting role. Still, there is not a more cheerful or engaging movie around these days...
...used to be that special effects were created to serve a movie's story, to permit the camera to capture that which could not be found-or recorded on film-in the natural world. But now, in the postStar Wars era, stories are created merely to provide a feeble excuse for the effects. Star Trek consists almost entirely of this kind of material: shot after shot of vehicles sailing through the firmament to the tune of music intended to awe. But the spaceships take an unconscionable amount of time to get anywhere, and nothing of dramatic or human interest...
...turns out that the villainous UFO is not manned. This is very peculiar, since in the film's opening sequence it is full of weirdos. By the time the Enterprise closes in on it, the creatures have all disappeared, victims not of the story line but of what appears to be a shortage of either money or time. In a very fast shuffle, the film suddenly announces that the villain is not merely a Death Star, but "a great, living machine." When Ilia, the Enterprise's navigator, is captured by the enemy and literally rewired...