Outside Ozona

An impressive ensemble cast heads up this well-crafted slice-of-life drama about a group of strangers who cross the path of a brutal, serial killer on a stretch of Southwestern blacktop one evening. Among these strangers are: Robert Forster as widowed trucker Odell Parks, who, for the first time since his wife died, finds himself attracted to another woman, a Navajo (Lois Red Elk); Kevin Pollack, an out-of-work, crying-on-the-inside type circus clown and his sexually indiscreet wife Penelope Ann Miller, who are heading nowhere with just $60 bucks between them; and Taj Mahal and Meat Loaf as a bitter DJ and his station boss, respectively, whose eclectic wee hours' programming provide the film and its characters with a soundtrack. Several good performances make this one worthy of a look-see, particularly Forster, Red Elk, Taj Mahal, and Lucy Webb, as a police investigator who has been tracking the killer for months. Tech credits are all very good, and the film is nicely paced, and well cut. While the film suffers from a clumsy deus ex machina ending that strains to tie all their stories together, writer-director J. S. Cardone nicely captures the loneliness, and menace, of a late night stretch of pitch black highway. Recommended. (S. C. Nickles)