Jeff Bridges plays a smiling farm boy in 1929 Iowa, harboring dreams of writing Western prose, who journeys to Nevada and inadvertently becomes involved with a movie troupe making talking pictures. Howard Zieff, a TV commercial director with one film (1973's wacky "Slither") behind him, was poised for great things, yet this second feature of his barely gets off the ground. Working from a wordy screenplay by new writer Rob Thompson, Zieff is able to add little bits and pieces of his eccentric style and personality, but the 'plot' (such as it is) fails to deliver on its promises. Opening with the 1930s-styled M-G-M lion, Zieff begins the picture with Bridges' screen test...and then jumps awkwardly back in time without explanation. It takes another 20 minutes for the film to get a big, juicy scene (Bridges volunteering to do a dangerous stunt--jumping onto a horse from a second story balcony); in the interim, the picture idles about dealing with two unsavory characters who are chasing after stolen money. The on-screen movie folk (featuring Alan Arkin as director, Blythe Danner as the script girl, and Andy Griffith as an aging cowboy actor) are a fun bunch, though Zieff allows this part of the film--which should have been the picture's meat and potatoes--to dribble away. Bridges gambles on his salary and gets himself fired, but we don't know if he was duped or simply given bad advice. Worse, the early-1930s atmosphere isn't well-captured, and Bridges at this point had little range. *1/2 from ****
Review of Hearts of the West
