ALWAYS
A film review by Laurie Mann
Copyright 1989 Laurie Mann
In a word, WOW!
There's something very special about a Steven Spielberg movie starring Richard Dreyfuss. Dreyfuss tends to give some of his more thoughtful work, and Spielberg tends to give him pretty interesting roles. ALWAYS, which sounds a lot like an old escapist movie (and is, in fact, based on "A Guy Called Joe") is just a wonderful, engrossing movie. A solid 8 on the movie scale.
The story is simple---a pilot who fights fires is killed and is called by Hap (Audrey Hepburn) to be the guardian angel of a fire pilot in training. Before Pete (Dreyfuss) is killed off, there are some terrific fire-fighting scenes, and a long, rowdy night in a bar as we follow Pete, his lover Dorinda (Holly Hunt), and their friend Al (John Goodman). The chemistry between Dreyfuss and Hunt is great.
Talking plot in a movie like this is pretty meaningless. What counts are the performances and they are uniformly wonderful. Goodman continues to be the ultimate support man, and is very powerful when he's angry. Hunter, Dreyfuss, and Brad Johnson (an incredible hunk (who wears glasses even!) who plays the new fire pilot) are great. The fire-fighting scenes are very exciting. The ending was so engrossing that I completely stopped hearing an annoying alarm that was going off in the theater until the credits rolled.
In short, GO SEE IT!
Laurie Mann ** harvard!m2c!jjmhome!lmann ** lmann%jjmhome@m2c.m2c.org
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