Cold Feet

Thomas McGuane and Jim Harrison, two of our finest contemporary authors teamed up to pen the script to this wicked black comedy which scores in the imagination department, but ultimately fails as a film. Keith Carradine stars as Monte Latham, a low down no-account cowboy crook who is loved without question by Maureen (Sally Kirkland) and barely tolerated by their eccentric partner Kenny (singer/actor Tom Waits), a hit man who thinks of himself as corporate executive material. When the oddball trio smuggle a horse filled with emeralds into the U.S., Monte gives his companions the slip, and takes off for his brother's ranch in Montana. Kenny is determined to catch Monte and rearrange his face (as in suitable for an obituary photo), but Maureen is still stuck on Monte, and tries her best to keep the impatient Kenny under control. ("Honey, I know you just wanna spread your wings and kill something, but be patient.") What must have looked darn funny on paper doesn't quite manage to work on the big screen. The howler lines are truly some of the best of the year, but the trio of leads overacts terribly and the novelists-turned-screenwriters seem to be unfamiliar with the altogether different demands of writing for film. Cold Feet ends up being little more than a cinematic oddity, liable to amuse some, and confuse many. (The ending is particularly lame, incredibly violating point-of-view, something the novelists certainly know cold). An optional purchase. (R. Pitman)