Bandits

Drawing from Thelma and Louise, The Fugitive and The Harder They Come, this German outlaw road movie is fueled by grrrl power. "Bandits" is the name of a female jailhouse quartet--Luna, Marie, Angel and Emma--who overpower a sexually abusive guard and manage to escape. At first they're outraged that two other escaped convicts--males--are getting better press, but their own celebrity is enhanced when a record producer fishes their discarded demo tape out of the garbage and releases it, turning them into instant folk heroes. Instead of laying low, the gals make a videotape taunting the police and stage impromptu barroom concerts, spurring on the cocksure detective who brags that he clears all his cases in the time it takes for him to go through a pack of cigarillos. Bandits' pace falters in the last half hour as director Katja von Garnier stages climax after anti-climax, any of which, happily or unhappily, could have ended the film. While the girls, each with a troubled past, are not the most sympathetic heroines, they have a misfit integrity that may steal your heart by the time they make their last dash for freedom. Recommended. (K. Lee Benson)