City Slickers

Peter McGinn: This is is a fairly funny movie. Billy Crystal’s character and two friends head out for a dude ranch for an adventure vacation. The jokes come vast and furious as do the sight gags. Jack Palance made a bit of a name for himself with his cowboy antics and one-armed pushups. My favorite scene had nothing to do with dude ranch stuff. Mitch (Crystal) is explaining how a DVD recorder doesn’t even require the tv to record a show, and his friend just isn’t getting it. It’s hilarious. This isn’t a movie classic or anything, but plenty entertaining enough.

CinemaSerf: As their fortieth birthdays loom large and illustrate to "Mitch" (Billy Crystal), "Ed" (Bruno Kirby) and "Phil" (Daniel Stern) that their high-powered city jobs are ultimately quite unfulfilling, they decide to take up the challenge of herding some cows from Mexico up to Colorado. Completely unused to the wilderness, or indeed to anything without air-conditioning and comfort, they are put under the charge of the gnarly "Curly" (Jack Palance) who's disdain for this hapless trio is fairly clear from the outset. What chance they can adapt their city attitudes to cope with all that nature can throw at them? Well on that front there's not the slightest bit of jeopardy, it's all about their "journey". There, I think it will all depend on whether or not you like Billy Crystal's style of semi-slapstick comedy. I don't really and so wasn't particularly engaged as this sort of merged John Wayne with Laurel and Hardy. Palance looks like he's enjoying himself, and easily steals the show with his facial expressions conveying just as much as the rather predictable script. Stern also delivers quite entertainingly as they battle with the cattle and the snakes that rattle amidst some stunning New Mexico scenery that sets up the story perfectly. It's a story about recalibrating life and on that score it sends quite a powerful message about people stopping every now and again to appreciate what they had/have and to take stock of what they want to come next. That thrust epitomises the difference between the urban and the rural, their population's who do and those who talk about doing quite well - but the humour was just all bit lame for me and the whole thing takes too long to finish where I always thought it would.