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Truly Dreadful Film

Fantastic!

A Masterpiece!

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Before Angelina Jolie blew up front and centre, she got her start in some wild and wacky b movies and genre stuff, the weirdest of which has to be Mojave Moon. It's one of those low rent flicks where not much of anything happens, the characters meander in and out of a non-story and almost everyone is completely nuts. 'B movie dramedy' I suppose would be the specific sub-genre. The 'story', as it were, follows drifter Al (Danny Aiello), who meets pretty young Ellie (Jolie) in a diner and hitches a ride out to the desert for seemingly no reason at all. As Ellie takes a shine to him, he begins to fall for her mother (Anne Archer). Only problem is, her mom has a boyfriend played by Michael Biehn who is quite possibly one of the weirdest characters I've ever seen in a film. Volatile, berserkly unstable and constantly in near hysteria mode, it's an odd performance that off-sets the quirky tone straight into the twilight zone. That seems to be the idea here though, the dreamy desert climate having a strange effect on these folks, causing all kinds of outrageous behaviour and scenarios. The town offers a rogue's gallery of characters including Michael Berryman, Alfred Molina, Jack Noseworthy, Peter Macnicol, John Getz, Michael Massee and others, all of whom don't really do much other than show up, act weird for a bit and then wander off again. I like this type of film though, purposeless other than to languish about with characters who don't want much, their arcs sputtering in a flatline of small town doldrums and behaviour that only makes sense to them. It's not for everyone, which is why no one really gives credit to this stuff, but it's enjoyable once in a while, when you're in as strange a mood as the residents of this one horse sideshow of a town.

Even though I gave it only 3 stars, I still liked this movie. Aiello, Archer and Jolie are all very good actors and they mesh pretty well in this. Biehn and Molina are caricatures and I wonder why. Well, no I don't. I blame the director. What could have been a very thoughtful film turns into a lame, sophomoric second half. Too bad; Biehn and Molina are competent actors but the cartoonish stuff blows. Oh well, Aiello and Asher are always good, Jolie is so attractive and sexy that were she more so the screen would explode. This could have been a much better film. However, the movie is photographed beautifully. I just checked the credits and it appears the director does nothing but TV series. This film should have gone to someone like Bogdanovich or even DePalma. Oh well.

This movie is not that good. I watched it late at night on TV and it is a movie that definitely belongs on late night when mostly bad movies, obscure films are presented. It is one of those slow-paced movies that suffer of poor writing and a bad script. The Mojave desert is the setting and the premise is quite simple- a 50 yr old divorced man meets a sexy young woman (Angelina Jollie) who asks him to take her to her home in the desert. There he meets the girl's mother who is internally struggling with a bad marriage to a nasty man. The weird, Stepford Wife like mom is played quite over-the-top. The poor victim is lured into covering up a murder and it goes from there. The movie was really really bad, with cheesy dialog. It was made in 1996 and at this time Angelina Jollie was not quite yet a star. She would start to be noticed in Girl Interrupted and most famously in "Tomb Raider" followed by Beyond Borders and several other films. Angelina Jollie would also become famous for her changing lifestyle- from rebellious wild child to a humanitarian woman who worked in refugee camps and adopted an Asian boy and is thinking of adopting more children in the vein of Mia Farrow. This movie is only nice to watch for fans of Angelina Jollie who plays a close parody of her own personality at the time before she 'settled down". This is still a bad movie that could use some gloss and polish.

The movie is strange but you come to like it. It has a Lynch atmosphere and it alternates between comedy and thriller (reminded me of Wild At Heart sometimes). This is the first film Angelina Jolie film I've seen. She's gorgeous! If I were Aiello I would definitely fall for her. Michael Biehn is extremely cool!