Truth or Consequences, N.M.

1997

Johnny's comments:

Can it get worse than Thursday (yesterday's page)? Enter Truth or Consequences N.M., directed by and starring Kiefer Sutherland. Again basically ripping off Tarantino (but not as openly as Thursday does), the movie is about a group of violent thieves who are on the run from the law and other criminals after a robbery turns to murder. As a way of avoiding everyone, they take a couple in a R.V. hostage and take them along as they get to their destination, leaving a trail of bodies in their wake. Also, one of the gang is an undercover cop and they've already murdered one undercover cop, so he's always on edge. Kiefer's character wouldn't look out of place in Thursday, all drug-snorting and killing everyone who looks at him (or just being talked out of it before doing so) and is basically unbearable for the entire movie.

The plot's pretty silly and there's a love story for some reason then to top it off, Martin Sheen turns up as the head of a renegade police squad who go after the gang but they are basically murderers with badges, adding nothing to the movie except more violence. All ends with a massive shoot-out in the middle of nowhere. About the only interesting thing in the movie is the Kevin Pollak character who plays one of the hostages who starts to take a liking to the gang despite warnings against doing so, but apart from that, it's violent scenes in between boredom.

Scoop's comments:

If there were no Quentin Tarantino, mankind would have to invent him. Let's hope he never reads that. The sumbitch has a big enough ego after being compared to Godard. Imagine how large his head will get if he sees himself compared to God, without the -ard.

Tarantino's Pulp Fiction was a cool film, telling a story from the point of view of different types of baddies and losers, combining its stylized ultra-violence with "hip" pop lingo. I didn't think it was quite as hip as everyone else seemed to think, but I thought it was an interesting piece of lurid entertainment, and a perfect match to its title, reflecting the attitudes of the fiction found in the sleaziest pulp magazines. Unfortunately, Tarantino's success and acclaim inspired a whole bunch of people to try to do just about the same thing despite a lack of Tarantinoesque talent and panache. Truth or Consequences, N.M. is one such example. This was the first theatrical film (second overall) directed by Kiefer Sutherland, who also played the hammiest role (the trigger-happy, gun-crazy guy who is de rigueur in B-movie crime stories).

It begins with a bunch of low-rent thugs ripping off some mobsters. Isn't that how these things always start? Predictably, the heist gets messed up and all the mobsters end up dying grisly deaths. Worse yet, one of the mobsters was an undercover DEA agent. The stumblebums also manage to kill a bunch of police officers in the process of making their getaway. Therefore, our inept antiheroes have both the mob and the Feds after them as they make a low-tech run for the border.

We have the usual characters in their "band of four".

* The flamboyant loose cannon guy.

* The crime-as-a-lunchbox-job guy who just wants to make one score and move to Mexico with his girlfriend.

* The actual girlfriend.

* Another undercover cop.

The gang manages to pick up two hostages along the way, and the male hostage succumbs to Stockholm Syndrome, which means he starts to identify with his captors and tries to become one of the gang, a rather complicated procedure since one of their gang is a cop to begin with, and refuses to accept his application!

Along the way to their inevitable big shoot-out in an old deserted house, the crooks and hostages create a massive body count and exchange pseudo-Tarantinian banter about the nutritional properties of breakfast burritos, the discomfort factor in Early American furniture, the gas mileage in recreational vehicles, and so forth.

Kim Dickens 1080hd film clip (sample below)