Watch Eddie Macon's Run For Free

Redundant and unnecessary.

As Good As It Gets

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

The best thing about the movie is the opening scene. The most enjoyable part is watching John Goodman in his first movie. Those two things take a total of about two minutes. There really is no other reason to watch, though it did have some potential. Alert viewers might also spot the not yet ready for prime time J.T. Walsh and Dann Florek.

Eddie Macon (John Schneider of 'Dukes of Hazzard' TV fame) is a basically good man, who's ended up in prison on trumped-up charges. Before the movie begins, he's already attempted one escape, and as it opens, he's pulling off another one. If he gets caught again, he's going back in for life. He takes off on foot for Mexico, to reunite with his wife Chris (Leah Ayres) and son Bobby (Matthew Meece). Relentlessly pursuing him is stubborn, over the hill detective Carl Marzack (Kirk Douglas), who wants to prove to himself that he's still got what it takes to be a cop. At least, that's what he tells a friend.In his first film vehicle, the engaging Schneider does a creditable job, playing a likable enough guy with the odds stacked against him. Among other episodes, Eddie will be threatened by a snake, tormented by redneck ranching family the Potts, and end up in the company of Jilly Buck (lovely Lee Purcell, delivering the movies' most interesting performance), who is willing to provide him assistance for no other reason than that it's a "slow Wednesday". Schneider provides a fair amount of beefcake moments for those that are interested, and also croons two songs on the soundtrack.Competently shot (by James A. Contner), decently paced (director Jeff Kanew, who adapted the novel by James McLendon, was also the editor), and well acted, "Eddie Macon's Run" is not a great chase picture, but it is an adequate one, although there may be viewers that will wish there was more action. (There's actually only ONE car crash in this whole thing.) Douglas may be a little old for his role, but he's fun to watch. The first rate supporting cast features a respectable amount of familiar faces: Lisa Dunsheath, Tom Noonan, and Jay O. Sanders as the aforementioned Potts family, J.C. Quinn, Gil Rogers, Todd Allen, Nesbitt Blaisdell, Matthew Cowles, Vic Polizos, Dann Florek, J.T. Walsh (in his film debut), John Goodman, and Mark Margolis.All in all, "Eddie Macon's Run" is not memorable but it IS entertaining.Seven out of 10.

John Schneider is Eddie Macon, a young man imprisoned for a crime he did not commit. He escapes from the slams, arranges for his beautiful wife and lovely kiddie to meet him on the border bridge in Laredo, kidnaps the governor's daughter, Lee Purcell, in her Mercedes, and races across Texas with Kirk Douglas hot on his tail.The musical score has a theme song, a kind of cowboy rock, with lyrics like, "Put your head on my shoulder, we can talk about things before." The music gets a jazzed-up treatment during the requisite car chase through the cemetery. It slows down and we get to hear a mournful harmonica during the scenes in which Schneider and Purcell get to know one another and Schneider talks about how much he misses his wife.The couple spend the night in the La Posada Motel in Laredo. By this time, Schneider is both filthy and exhausted from the flight. Lee Purcell coaxes him into taking a shower. She follows him in and gives him a loving wash and a kind of massage. Later she puts some moves on him but he, having just woke up, says he remembers nothing of the night before and he refuses to do anything untoward with her now because -- "You're wife," says Purcell, capping his apology.Well, the fact is that Schneider may be a good-looking guy. At least he looks, sounds, and acts like a typical Hollywood actor with an even sun tan and carefully styled hair. But he's a complete moron for brushing off Lee Purcell because she's a fox. On top of that, his three years in stir may have taught him a lot, as he claims, but they never taught him how to act. I don't think he utters a believable line in the entire movie and there are moments when a viewer might understandably wonder if he's wandered by mistake into a high school play in East Windsor Township.Purcell, however, does a professional job and so does Kirk Douglas as the savvy cop in pursuit. The dialog isn't a total loss but I'm confused about the direction and about the intended audience. It's a modern Western that smacks of the drive-in theater, but it's both cruel and indulgent to the Texans we meet on the screen. I'll give an example. Douglas is relaxing at a bar for a moment and this dumb-looking bar tender tells him a joke about blacks. It's truly offensive -- yet it's funny too. Douglas replies, "That's very funny," with no expression on his face. The audience will presumably snicker at the joke before feeling a twinge of guilt. The encounter has no function in the plot. It's simply slipped in for a laugh from the cowboys in the theater. This is known as having your cake and eating it too.As I say, the dialog as a whole isn't insulting. The writers did okay, given the plot that was demanded of them. But there is no invention in the movie. Not even in the title. "Eddie Macon's Run"? Well, there had been a successful "Logan's Run" some years before, and "The Last Run" more recently. Then there was "Macon County Line" and "Return to Macon County," the second being an indication that the first had made money, and not to mention Macon, Georgia. The failure of the film to get Texas down on celluloid wouldn't be so noticeable if there hadn't already been some that had done so successfully. Try Sam Pekinpah's "The Getaway." Or, if you want still more stylized but empathic realism, try the more recent, "No Country For Old Men." That last, a superb study of the Southwest and its citizenry, was written and directed by the Coen brothers, two nice young Jewish kids from Minnesota.

Standard plot of "innocent guy on the run from the law" works well. However, this movie would be much less without Kirk Douglas. He makes the movie. Nothing spectacular here, but not a bad movie. Any movie that has the video game "Gorf" can't be bad. I give it a 7 out of 10. Lee Purcell is hot!