CITY SLICKERS (12)
D: Ron Underwood
Castle Rock/Nelson (Irby Smith)
USA 🇺🇸 1991
112 mins
Comedy/Western
W: Lowell Ganz & Babaloo Mandel
DP: Dean Semler
Ed: O. Nicholas Brown
Mus: Marc Shaiman
PD: Lawrence G. Paull
Cos: Judy Ruskin
Billy Crystal (Mitch Robbins), Daniel Stern (Phil
Berquist), Bruno Kirby (Ed Furillo), Patricia Wettig (Barbara Robbins), Helen Slater (Bonnie Rayburn), Jack Palance (Curly Washburn), Noble Willingham (Clay Stone), Tracey
Walter (Cookie), Josh Mostel (Barry Shalowitz), David Paymer (Ira Shalowitz)
Three friends on the brink of a mid-life crisis go on a
trip where they drive cattle just like the cowboys of the old west.
On the trip, they discover the meaning of friendship, and
of life, before taking responsibility for their own lives and of the cattle drive itself after the head cowboy does and the two other professional cowboys in charge go nuts.
This is most definitely a 'guy's movies', all about male
bonding and the simple pleasures that drive them through life. There's not much else in the way of plot, but the screenplay has several witty one-liners and references to classic
westerns, itself classed as more of a 'genre for guys'. Billy Crystal, Daniel Stern & Bruno Kirby are all great as the three buddies trying to find themselves again, but Jack
Palance steals the show as an amalgamation of classic Western hard men.
Keep an eye out for a young Jake Gyllenhaal as Billy
Crystal's son.
8/10