Word: redfords
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...screen fills with hundreds of colored shapes spinning like a crayola volcano dancing the twist. The Electric Horseman, starring Robert Redford and Jane Fonda, is not scheduled to start for ten minutes yet the balding accountant three seats down already has his right hand in bucket of popcorn; his other inching up his wife's sweater, his eyes aimed at the screen. The color pattern repeats itself on the black screen, revolving twice with a one and a half twist like a lasarium with hiccups. Everyone in the theater, not just the accountant, watches the screen as if something were...
...posters for the film show Robert Redford holding Jane Fonda by the thighs while she hangs on for dear life with her head between his legs. No such scene ever occurs in the film. The posters also advertise with the catchword "Electric," hinting that Fonda and Redford spar and spark together like Hepburn and Grant in the olden days. It's not that the poster meant to lie, they just wouldn't sell many tickets with a slogan like "Blown Fuse." Truth is, Redford makes a cute, loveable cowboy in this pleasant, if pretentious, film. And Fonda makes a cute...
...both appearing, past the dancing girls, past the hysterical director, through the audience, past the slot machines in the lobby and on down the Las Vegas strip. The scene is an outrageous assault on probability, but in its unexpectedness, it is a delight. Fonda's pursuit of Redford and the authorities' pursuit of all three fugitives are full of similar surprises, including a fine action sequence in which horse and rider twist and turn through town and countryside, eluding with skill and heart the mechanized klutzes who are after them. Here, too, there are improbabilities: an effete Thoroughbred...
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...
...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...