Western outlaws Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid are reuniting on the small screen for a two-hour movie/backdoor pilot for NBC tentatively titled The Legends of Butch & Sundance. The project, from Once Upon a Time Films and Viacom Prods., will chronicle the adventures of the duo of bank and train robbers -- immortalized in the 1969 blockbuster hit Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid -- starting from the time they first met. The title roles, played in the movie by Paul Newman and Robert Redford, have gone to newcomers David Rogers (Butch) and Ryan Browning (Sundance).
"The Smokers" are three middle-American bad girls for whom everyday is Halloween and every bong hit is an act of rebellion.
In their little counter-culture cell of an otherwise noneventful boarding school in Wisconsin, boys are the object and the enemy and a gun becomes the way to "change the game." Not an uncommon problem, however, the filmmakers have had a few too many puffs of movies-can-be-political-and-fun locoweed to take this one seriously.
The directorial debut of Christina Peters, who co-wrote the screenplay with producer Kenny Golde, "Smokers" unspooled with a thud at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. Thora Birch is a scene-stealer as the younger sister of Dominique Swain's lead character, who is romanced by Calvin Klein model Joel West. But it's hard to imagine the indie wafting much further than the festival circuit and some fashion of ancillary packaging.
While the dialogue is raunchy and the girls spend much of their time pursuing and connecting with an array of males, "Smokers" is pretty tame stuff when it's not careening wildly into "taboo" territory, such as the first scene set in the school's washroom and centered on tampons.
Stilted and nominally thought out in terms of cinematic possibilities, until it goes completely over-the-top in the violent and unnecessarily tragic finale, Peters' film purports to take on post-Colombine issues of fed up and victimized teenagers who are prone to self-destruct and cause harm to others in the process. There is indeed a scene in the film's middle section where the leads get a gun, don masks and attack a boy they know with the intent to rape him, but they stop before going too far.
Colorfully accessorized and chameleonic from day to day, these "Smokers" flash a nasty attitude but don't really have a revolutionary agenda. Jefferson (Swain) likes to wear big floppy hats and slinky outfits; Karen (Busy Philipps of "Freaks and Geeks") is bigger-boned and brassy; Lisa Keri Lynn Pratt) looks to be all of 13, but proves she's a party girl to be reckoned with. All three actresses appear to be having fun, but the mood is not very contagious and the writing is stuck in grade school when it comes to character development.
Younger and witchier, Jefferson's sister Lincoln (Birch) in Chicago is the source of the gun, but she's used sparingly. The gun, alas, never goes away, and with no authority keeping them back, the "Smokers" go looking for trouble and eventually regret the consequences.
While West looks great and has nothing else to do, Oliver Hudson, Nicholas M. Loeb and Ryan Browning round out the hapless group of guys who date, pine for or cross paths with the fired-up girls in a story that increasingly makes little sense.
THE SMOKERS
International Production Co.
A Kenny Golde production
Director:Christina Peters
Screenwriters:Christina Peters, Kenny Golde
Producers:Nicholas M. Loeb, Kenny Golde
Executive producers:Ted Roesgen, Quincy Jones, Michael A. Niemtzow
Director of photography:J.B. Lechtinger
Production designer:Sandra Elkind
Editor:Elias Chalhub
Costume designer:Oren Shepher
Music:Lawrence Gingold
Casting:Felicia Fasand
Color/stereo
Cast:
Jefferson:Dominique Swain
Karen:Busy Philipps
Lisa:Keri Lynn Pratt
Lincoln:Thora Birch
Jeremy:Nicholas M. Loeb
David:Oliver Hudson
Christopher:Joel West
Dan:Ryan Browning
Running time -- 95 minutes
No MPAA rating...
In their little counter-culture cell of an otherwise noneventful boarding school in Wisconsin, boys are the object and the enemy and a gun becomes the way to "change the game." Not an uncommon problem, however, the filmmakers have had a few too many puffs of movies-can-be-political-and-fun locoweed to take this one seriously.
The directorial debut of Christina Peters, who co-wrote the screenplay with producer Kenny Golde, "Smokers" unspooled with a thud at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. Thora Birch is a scene-stealer as the younger sister of Dominique Swain's lead character, who is romanced by Calvin Klein model Joel West. But it's hard to imagine the indie wafting much further than the festival circuit and some fashion of ancillary packaging.
While the dialogue is raunchy and the girls spend much of their time pursuing and connecting with an array of males, "Smokers" is pretty tame stuff when it's not careening wildly into "taboo" territory, such as the first scene set in the school's washroom and centered on tampons.
Stilted and nominally thought out in terms of cinematic possibilities, until it goes completely over-the-top in the violent and unnecessarily tragic finale, Peters' film purports to take on post-Colombine issues of fed up and victimized teenagers who are prone to self-destruct and cause harm to others in the process. There is indeed a scene in the film's middle section where the leads get a gun, don masks and attack a boy they know with the intent to rape him, but they stop before going too far.
Colorfully accessorized and chameleonic from day to day, these "Smokers" flash a nasty attitude but don't really have a revolutionary agenda. Jefferson (Swain) likes to wear big floppy hats and slinky outfits; Karen (Busy Philipps of "Freaks and Geeks") is bigger-boned and brassy; Lisa Keri Lynn Pratt) looks to be all of 13, but proves she's a party girl to be reckoned with. All three actresses appear to be having fun, but the mood is not very contagious and the writing is stuck in grade school when it comes to character development.
Younger and witchier, Jefferson's sister Lincoln (Birch) in Chicago is the source of the gun, but she's used sparingly. The gun, alas, never goes away, and with no authority keeping them back, the "Smokers" go looking for trouble and eventually regret the consequences.
While West looks great and has nothing else to do, Oliver Hudson, Nicholas M. Loeb and Ryan Browning round out the hapless group of guys who date, pine for or cross paths with the fired-up girls in a story that increasingly makes little sense.
THE SMOKERS
International Production Co.
A Kenny Golde production
Director:Christina Peters
Screenwriters:Christina Peters, Kenny Golde
Producers:Nicholas M. Loeb, Kenny Golde
Executive producers:Ted Roesgen, Quincy Jones, Michael A. Niemtzow
Director of photography:J.B. Lechtinger
Production designer:Sandra Elkind
Editor:Elias Chalhub
Costume designer:Oren Shepher
Music:Lawrence Gingold
Casting:Felicia Fasand
Color/stereo
Cast:
Jefferson:Dominique Swain
Karen:Busy Philipps
Lisa:Keri Lynn Pratt
Lincoln:Thora Birch
Jeremy:Nicholas M. Loeb
David:Oliver Hudson
Christopher:Joel West
Dan:Ryan Browning
Running time -- 95 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 3/20/2000
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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