John Belushi’s characteristically frantic style is rarely on display in Michael Apted’s 1981 romantic comedy, based on a screenplay by Lawrence Kasdan, whose superior writing-directing debut Body Heat had preceded it into theatres only a few weeks earlier. What Kasdan had in mind was a modern version of the classic films pairing Spencer Tracey and Katharine Hepburn, but the result lacks their scintillating pacing and piercing wit, coming across as overly leisurely and bland.
Belushi plays Ernie Souchak, a columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times who has become famous in the city for his muckraking, take-no-prisoners journalism. He is currently working on a multi-part exposé of a powerful but grossly corrupt alderman named Yablonowitz (Val Avery), using information from a whistleblower (Bruce Jarchow) to bring his crooked deals to light. Yablonowitz responds with fury, ordering his minions to assault Souchak and even trying to kill him.
To remove his star reporter from harm’s way, the paper’s editor (billed here under his actual family name of Allen Goorwitz, though he is usually credited as Allen Garfield) assigns him to travel to the Colorado Rockies to interview Dr. Nell Porter (Blair Brown), a beautiful ornithologist who has become famous for living as a recluse in the mountains in order to study the bald eagles that nest there.
A city boy addicted to cigarettes and booze who hates the very thought of the outdoors (as well as of writing what amounts to a puff piece), Souchakis reluctant to go, but finally does. The good doctor is not excited about taking him in, but since his guide will not return for two weeks, lets him stay. Of course, following some bickering and encounters with bears and mountain lions (as well as a pro football player who has abandoned civilization for a hermit’s life), they fall in love.
After completing his interview, however, Souchak returns to Chicago, succeeding in forcing Yablonowitz to flee the country. When Nell comes to the city to give a talk about her research, they reconnect and find their feelings for one another still strong. Unfortunately, the commitment each has to his/her work means that the geographical chasm suggested by the title will keep them apart.
In the end, it must be admitted, Kasdan fails to find a particularly deft way of resolving the corner he has written himself into, and ends things with a sort of feel-good cop-out. But that will probably not disturb viewers willing to swallow the implausibility usual in romantic comedies, and since the two stars complement each other nicely—Belushi doing a haggard fish-out-of-water routine as the newsman lost in the wilderness and Brown handily embodying a committed, self-reliant woman—Continental Divide winds up as a moderately engaging, if rather forgettable, diversion.
Extras include the theatrical trailer and an audio commentary. A strong optional purchase.