med_1978 I have to say the first time I saw this movie I was left stunned.This is superbly photographed, well acted and very unpredictable road movie thriller.This is one movie where I honestly could not predict what was going to happen next. An excellent cast headed by French actor Jean Hugues Anglade (Betty Blue, Killing Zoe) the very luminous Connie Nielsen (Gladiator, The Ice Harvest) & sexy Mia Kirshner (The Black Dahlia, Mad City)play two sisters in a very unusual road movie.The supporting cast is excellent too with the likes of Frank Langella, Anne Archer, Robert Culp & Keith David.The storyline throws up one surprise after another as the three go on the road after the sister's father passes, quite quickly though things take a very dark turn and Gerard Huxley (Jean Hugues Anglade) begins to wonder if he has made a grave mistake.The music in the film is good and the locations are beautifully photographed.I thoroughly enjoyed this movie and really cannot understand the low score. I give it 7/10

smatysia Sort of a mess. There is a lot right about this picture, but it's not enough to make up for a poor plot. The direction was OK, and the photography good. There were excellent acting performances all around. Connie Nielsen was awesome. Mia Kirshner was, too. These were good roles, these actresses got to really chew the scenery. Same goes for Anne Archer in a smaller part. Robert Culp and Frank Langella were sort of slumming, but were still good, as actors of their caliber should be. Even the French guy turned in a good one. But that isn't enough to make up for a terrible plot, depending on stunning coincidences. I found the ending highly anticlimactic, as well. Just can't recommend this one.

Robert J. Maxwell This has been compared to Hitchcock but I'm not sure why. It isn't that Hitch didn't make a lot of road movies. He made a lot of them, beginning with "The Thirty-Nine Steps." But there was always a gimmick, something towards which the protagonists were heading, and the reason was clear even if the particular MacGuffin was not. This road movie has no goal, not even character development. We get the picture of character in the first few minutes: one peaceful Frenchman and two crazy sisters, an innocent and two broads. (That's meant to be a play on words. See Mark Twain.) The sisters remain pretty much the same throughout. The French musician realizes what's up but feels some vague sense of loyalty (or something) towards these women that keeps him from turning them over. He has the best line in the movie -- "You Americans, and your guns!" The film runs from one episode to the next without adding much to what we already know. Hitch's movies were filled with episodes and set pieces too, but they added up to more than the sum of their parts. The cameos here are interesting but don't change the nature of the film. The cellist and the Gold Dust Twins run into all kinds of creepy characters -- two pick-up artists in a cowboy saloon; a retired judge with a penchant for peeping (naughty!); the pick-up artists redux, this time as rapists/gunmen; the mother, a nice quick portrait by Amy Archer made more impressive by horrible makeup and compulsive use of the f word. What's there isn't badly handled. There's a nice Dakota thunderstorm. When the two gunmen get blasted, one gets it in long shot, with a distant strobe flash and puff of smoke bluish in the headlights. The acting is okay too. The Frogs have this ability to take an actor and make him inhabit a part to such an extent that we forget that he never seems a promising lead -- this guy here, Jean Reno, others. Ordinary faces in extraordinary circumstances. In its structure, if it resembles Hitchcock at all, it's late, kind of tired Hitchcock. "The Birds" maybe, without the Oedipal underpinnings, the incest theme notwithstanding.

Memlets Gerard, a French cellist, is driving across America when he sees cops investigating what looks like a car accident or a crime scene by the side of the road. He's so distracted that he runs off the highway and crashes into a field.At the hospital, he meets Megan, a beautiful nurse. She's very distracting, too, and invites him to dinner at her house.This guy never learns.Megan lives with her equally beautiful younger sister, Dominique, who's infantile and seductive, and their dying father. Dad dies a few hours later and is buried apparently the next day.Nothing like a funeral to stir the libido. That night, Gerard and Megan make love and a nude Gerard plays his cello in the dark.The next morning, the mind-gaming sisters play a trick on Gerard, who gets a bloody nose in the process, but when they invite themselves on his road trip, he doesn't flee in terror, as any sensible person would.About halfway through the movie, we're trying to decide what's more ridiculous: the over-the-top emoting over deep, dark family secrets; Dominique's personality; the cello-and-fiddle jam session at a country-western bar; Gerard's big, dumb puppy-dog eyes; or the fact that we're still watching.This movie is like a car wreck or a murder scene. It's dreadful, but you simply can't take your eyes off it.