Cold Feet Reviews

In this leisurely directed, deplorably scripted folk comedy/black farce, colorful characters foist their eccentricities on the audience for what seems an eternity. The entire project is off-center from its opening sequence in which a horse is surgically vented, stuffed with emeralds, and sewn back up so it can serve as a hiding place for stolen gems. In a movie rife with miscalculations, the scene only makes the viewers feel sorry for the animal and undermines any sympathy the film attempts to cultivate for its gang of larcenous misfits--Monte (Keith Carradine), the saturnine leader; his girl friend Maureen (Sally Kirkland), a voracious eater and hopeless romantic; and Kenny (Tom Waits), a mother-fixated hit man. The surgery takes place in Mexico, and the plan is for the three thieves to make their separate ways to Tucson where they will cut up the horse (which is to be taken there by Monte) and divvy up the spoils. Kenny complicates matters by senselessly killing the vet who inserted the jewels in the stallion, and the thieves quickly flee. En route to Tucson, Monte has a change of heart and decides to go straight (sort of). He heads for the Montana ranch of his brother Buck (Bill Pullman) where he plans to let the stallion mate with some brood mares. Furious when Monte doesn't show up in Tucson, Kenny and Maureen stalk Monte's daughter Rosemary (Amber Bauer), hoping she will lead them to Monte and the gems. When Monte sends for Rosemary, Kenny and Maureen follow her to Montana where they confront Monte in a bar. However, Monte is able to evade the bungling duo, though that night they track him down at Buck's ranch. Even more bungling follows as the film careens toward its unfunny conclusion. COLD FEET tries to be laid-back and hyperactive at the same time. Sort of a leaden Southwestern omelette, the film assaults the viewer with folksiness while the contrived storyline grows steadily more sour. The tasteless plottings undermine the film's happy-go-lucky mood, and the effort is further hampered by Pullman's flavorless reading of the narration. The pacing is so sluggish that the energy of the actors seems out of whack. Carradine, who remains aloof and underplays effectively, is the only performer who manages to maintain some semblance of dignity. Pullman, the poor man's Jeff Daniels, registers as a slightly sexier, younger version of Gabby Hayes; Waits strangles his lines and demonstrates no comprehension of how to maintain character consistency; while Kirkland merely makes a spectacle of herself. Australian director Robert Dornhelm (ECHO PARK) is clearly out of his element here, and COLD FEET is completely misguided effort that should be avoided at any cost. (Adult situations, violence, profanity.)