LEWIS & CLARK & GEORGE (director/writer: Rod McCall; cinematographer: Michael Mayers; editor: Ed Marx; cast: Salvator Xuereb (Lewis), Dan Gunther (Clark), Rose McGowan (George), James Brolin (Reverend Red), Paul Bartel (Cop), Art LaFleur (Fred), Holly Riddle (Betty), Paula Sorge (Tamee), Aki Aleong (Jack), E.E. Bell (Mailman), Brian Taylor (Boyfriend), 1997)
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
This is another in a long line of indie 'buddy films' about desperadoes going on the road. The only thing different about this one, is that it is consciously played for laughs, which gets it through its cartoonish lowbrow humor, as it features characters who all have something about them that is dysfunctional: they are illiterate, have a depraved mental condition, suffer from greed, or just like to kill people. It's a teenager's version of the noir classic "The Treasure of Sierra Madre,"lacking the breath and depth in its story to touch base with the classic, but letting its own dimwitted energy do its talking, for what it stands for.
The road it takes is across the Southwestern desert and across the barren culture of the white trash trailer park crowd. Lewis (Xuereb) is a psychopathic killer serving time for murder, his prison mate is Clark (Gunther) serving a 5-year term for computer fraud, and together these opposite personalities escape, armed with a map of a gold mine in an undisclosed destination in Mexico which a prisoner friend of Lewis' gave him before he died. Since Lewis can't read, he decided to take Clark along with him as a partner. Clark figures he likes gold more than he detests Lewis, so an untenable partnership is agreed to.
The delicious George (McGowan) is seen climbing over a zoo fence, stealing a rare venomous snake, while Fred (LaFleur), a man who loves to carry a bowling ball around with him, as if to let others know how cultured he is, finds out from George's sleazy boyfriend that the advance he gave the couple for $10,000, for whatever illegal deal they had going down, was lost in Las Vegas. Fred seriously beats him, but George gets away and steals a truck from a cowboy who has the hots for her, then dumps the truck and steals a car with a trailer hitched to it that has the dead body of the car owner's mother, who died on a vacation to Hollywood and is being taken back to Dallas for burial. While parked outside a cafe, George overhears an argument Lewis and Clark are having about Clark being upset that Lewis just killed a postman whom he thought by the appearance of the uniform was a cop. She also hears gold mine mentioned, and when Clark takes Lewis' gun and splits from him, she smilingly pulls him into her car and they are off together. She's a mute and communicates by writing. She finds out that Lewis has the map but Clark memorized it. If he didn't, she was about to throw him out of the car. Even though she is obviously untrustworthy and only after the money, Clark falls heavily in love with either her or her big boobs, and they are on their way to find the gold stopping only to screw. She does not realize that she is being chased by Fred, who believes she still has the money, while the police are looking for the escapees, even circulating Lewis' picture in the newspapers.
Lewis soon meets up with Clark again, after he romances a sex-starved stuck-in-the- boondocks trailer park single-mom (Paula), whose son doesn't take his eyes off the TV while the couple do it in the same room. He then leaves but is captured by the cop (Bartel) he soon kills, and then he goes after Clark and attempts to kill him at there reunion but is talked out of it for reasons of opportunity. George becomes the femme fatale ten percent partner to these wanted desperadoes, invaluable because she can read the Spanish that is given in the clues of the map.
The funniest scene in the film, is when a van-load of obnoxious New York tourists meet Lewis at one of the Western tourist sites, and slobber all over him, taking his pictures, happy to have met a real cowboy, and Lewis after playing the silent heroic cowboy for their gratification, promptly executes all of them.
There is nothing that we haven't seen before in such road films, from a vintage car convertible to a gun fetish to white trash humor, and finally to random violence, but there is a surprise ending here involving, what else, but, betrayal for the gold.
Even though there were many look-alike films, this black comedy could at least stand alone for the laughs it presented. The characters all had personality, and the force of the movie overall, had a desirable effect, even if it is an easy film to forget and requires as little thinking as possible when viewing. Enjoyable nonsense might be an apt description for former adman Rod McCall's second feature.
REVIEWED ON 6/6/2000 GRADE: C+
Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews"
http://www.sover.net/~ozus
ozus@sover.net
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