Word: costners
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...people buy soundtracks? Last year the soundtrack to that stupid movie with Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner stayed at number one for weeks, and some movies now seem like no more than extended videos for their soundtracks. You could sit back and listen to the tunes from "Singles" while the movie was still in production. There are only two possible motivations for owning a soundtrack: either it has something to do with the movie itself--you know, replicating that feeling of awe as you walk out of the theater, pretending that your life is as coherent and meaningful...
...convict Butch Haynes (Costner) has just escaped from prison with his partner, who immediately breaks into someone's home to stock up on provisions. In the ensuing struggle, Haynes takes the mother's eight-year-old son, Philip (T.J. Lowther), as a hostage, and they're off to hit the road. Haynes cleanly commits what we later learn is his second and final murder, and the little boy soon learns where he must turn his loyalties. Their relationship is quickly transformed from captor/captee, to mutual symbiosis for practical survival, to a mentor/mentee on the facts of life, to something that...
After a string of B-grade movies with roles as mediocre heroes, Kevin Costner has once again proven his reputation as as a first-rate performer. He portrays a likeable convict, one who deals with people with ease, handles every tight situation as if it were routine, and is charming through this very nonchalance and self-assuredness...
...addition to the bizarre melange of genres, the film is somewhat annoying in its Dan Quayle-esque Republican insistence upon family values. Though Haynes is a slime and a psychological misfit, Eastwood and Costner render him thoroughly endearing to the audience. The film also suggests that Haynes is somehow less accountable for his actions, and his anti-child-molesting streak becomes the prime justification for some of his crazy antics. The film never makes a definitive statement on the question of this moral responsibility, but chooses its points of drama for the lesser issues of the guilt, fear and confusion...
...screen dynamic between Costner and the little boy will appeal to a wide age range. The dialogue of the Costner character was very wittily constructed, and it is no wonder that at times we can become swept away by the twisted logic of the world according to Haynes. Eastwood's performance is fine, if not a little bit-eclipsed by his recent roles in "Unforgiven" and "In the Line of Fire...