moonspinner55 Review of Back Roads

Back Roads (1981)

"A wh*re is a 16-year-old with a bad reputation. I...am...a...hustler!"

[5/10 · 21 January 2001]

Director Martin Ritt reteamed with his "Norma Rae" star Sally Field for this curiously thin road movie that appears to have been inspired by '40s comedies, although nobody at the time was clamoring for an R-rated Preston Sturges. Field retains her appeal in a role that I'm not sure was meant to be likable or not. She's a hustler-with-a-heart-of-gold down South who dreams of being a manicurist; Tommy Lee Jones is the ex-fighter who heads with her out West for a brand new start. They fight, they make up, they swat bugs, they hitch rides, they fight some more. Ritt obviously wanted to give brand new Oscar winner Sally Field the kind of star build-up she nearly had in the Burt Reynolds pictures from the previous decade, but he needed a judicious editor to shape the scenes of comedy and sentimental drama. He also has a problem transitioning from one tone to the next: there's a rousing bit with Jones scoring in the boxing ring, but the joyous mood is then immediately undercut by too-real violence involving a sadistic madam (a genuinely chilling Miriam Colon). Ritt blamed the poor box office returns on his star-leads, who reportedly did not get along. True enough, simply casting nice-girl Field as a streetwalker is little more than a stunt without strong material to back her up. Field does get a subplot trying to establish contact with a child she gave up for adoption, but it leads nowhere--just like the majority of the dead-end "Back Roads". ** from ****