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Thelma & Louise (Special Edition) Customer Reviews (34 - 36 of 40 Reviews)

Two Fugitives On the Run
"Thelma And Louise" is one of the most memorable and one of the best films of 1991. This Oscar-winning film takes audiences on a journey into a road trip that takes an unplanned turn. Once Thelma (Geena Davis) has a close encounter with a rapist, their lives change forever. After Louise (Susan Sarandon) kills the rapist, the action starts and never stops until the film's end. The plot was written brilliantly. They combine comedy, drama, and action wonderfully. Their run from the law offers audiences many twists and turns as they encounter unpleasant visiters. The intensity keeps audiences guessing their next move in every scene. Only one other fugitive film comes close to the quality of "Thelma And Louise": "Bonnie And Clyde". However, no other film released before, during, and after matches the uniqueness. Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon add their own sense of theme in their Oscar-nominated roles for Best Actress. Their words and emotions are flawless from their Texas accent to their intense life struggles. All other actors perform their roles beautifully, including the then-unknown Brad Pitt. "Thelma And Louise" is a great film for those looking for a great action drama. This unforgettable experience is sure to continue pleasing audience for many more years.

Missing the point...?
"Thelma and Louise", first off, is a near-copy of a 1976 Roger Corman film, "The Great Texas Dynamite Chase", right down to the Brad Pitt character in a white cowboy hat. It's shocking there was no plagiarism issue involved in making this film.

No question, most of the men in this film are scum. Complete, total, absolute scum (Harvey Keitel is the lone exception).

But Susan Sarandon's character? Does this woman ever think maybe not only are many men scum, but she herself is an incredibly unappealing person as well? Her decision to blow the would-be rapist away because he makes a sarcastic comment as they escape is telling. She did not HAVE to put a bullet in his heart...she chose to do so.

Does Geena Davis learn anything in this film? Flirting heavily with one guy leaves her near-raped, and flirting heavily with Brad Pitt leaves her robbed. Both times, her actions lead to a major crime (the murder and the armed robbery). Does she get the point?

Davis is cute and Sarandon is far from it, but both women have precious little in the area of brains in this film.

Worst of all, the film deplorably glorifies suicide. Irresponsible cinema from a guy who should know better (Ridley Scott).

More than an exercise in male-bashing
This is an important commercial film aimed at blue collar women who feel victimized by both society and the men in their lives. Directed by Ridley Scott, who directed the science fiction classics, Alien (1979) and Blade Runner (1982), Thelma and Louise is an on-the-lam chick flick (with chase scenes), a kind of femme Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), somewhat akin to Wild at Heart (1990) and Natural Born Killers (1994) but without the gratuitous violence of those films. Ridley Scott walks the razor edge between femme-exploitation and serious social commentary. Incidentally, the script is by Callie Khouri who wrote Something to Talk About (1995) and Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (2002) which should give you an idea of how men are depicted here.

Susan Sarandon is Louise, a thirty-something Arkansas waitress with an attitude and some emotional baggage, and Geena Davis is Thelma, a cloistered ingenue housewife with a yearning to breath free. Both do an outstanding job and carry the film from beginning to end. The characters they play are well-rounded and fully developed and sympathetic, in contrast to the men in the film who are for the most part merely clichés, or in the case of Darryl (Christopher McDonald), Thelma's boorish husband, or the troll-like truck driver, burlesques.

I have never seen Geena Davis better. Her unique style is melded very well into a naive woman who never had a chance to express herself, but goes hog wild and seems a natural at it when the time comes. Sarandon is also at the top of her game and plays the crusty, worldly wise, vulnerable Louise with tenderness and understanding. Note, by the way, her pinned up in back hair-style, directly lifted from TV's Polly Holliday ("Kiss my grits!") who appeared as a waitress in the seventies sitcoms "Alice" and "Flo."

Harvey Keitel plays the almost sympathetic cop, Hal Slocumb, and Brad Pitt appears as J. D., a sweet-talking twenty-something who gives Thelma the script for robbing 7-11s as he steals more than her libido.

This movie works because it is funny and sad by turns and expresses the yearning we all have to be free of the restraints of society and its institutions (symbolized in the wide-open spaces of the American Southwest) while representing the on again, off again incompatibility of the male and female heart. The male-bashing is done with a touch of humor and the targets are richly deserving of what they get. The ending is perhaps too theatrical and frankly unrealistic, but opinions may differ.

Best and most telling quick scene is when Thelma phones Darryl to see if he has found out about their escapades. Weasel-like, he is trying to help the cops locate them, but he is so transparent to her that all she has to do is hear his voice. "He knows," she says to Louise and hangs up.

Best visual is when the black police helicopter appears suddenly, menacingly like a giant fly beneath the horizon of the Grand Canyon. Also excellent were the all those squad cars lined up like armored battalions aimed at the girls on the run.

I also liked the scenes at the motel with J.D. and Louise's boyfriend. They were beautifully directed and cut, and very well conveyed by Sarandon and Davis, depicting two contrasting stages in male-female relationships.

See this for Geena Davis because she was brilliant, vividly alive and never looked better.

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