Carried Away Movie Review

Watching movies can be DANGEROUS! No, really. I read a decent review of this movie and went dashing out to see it before it closed. The first thing that happens, there's this jagged metal THING in the seat in front of me that gashes my knee and I'm bleeding all over a sticky theatre floor littered with dried-up popcorn and trampled-on bubble gum. Drat, and I left my hydrogen peroxide at home in the medicine cabinet. Like any dedicated movie buff, I let my knee heal itself for 107 minutes sans disinfectant. Was it worth it in this case? Uh…no. First off, Dennis Hopper is 60 here, and what's more, he looks older, as in WAY older. It looks like Amy Irving is meant to be his contemporary here, although she's actually 17 years younger. Even glammed down, she still looks WAY younger. Then there's seductress Amy Locane, who's really 25, but is meant to be 17. ("That,” says a 16-year-old of my acquaintance, “is what grownups think teenagers look like. Any teenager knows what a teenager looks like.”) But if they're all good actors, who cares? Now, if a 60-year-old actress is going with a 43-year-old actor who's supposed to be the same age and the actress is also having sex with a 25-year-old actor who's supposed to be 17, you'd hear “Get out of town!” way faster than you can say, “But they're all good actors!” Anyway, Hopper is Joseph Svendon, a teacher and a farmer with a limp who takes care of his frail mother (Julie Harris). He's keeping company with Irving as Rosealee Henson until Locane as Catherine Wheeler swings into his life. Catherine knows just how to vamp Joseph by expanding her chest while she's wearing a tight shirt, so they have sex right away and lots of it. Rosealee senses it and old Dr. Evan (Hal Holbrook) warns him about it, but what's an old guy like Joseph to do? Catherine asked for it. An extremely fit-looking Gary Busey, 52, is Major Nathan Wheeler, Catherine's father. From his very first appearance, I kept thinking how much better Carried Away would have been if Busey and Hopper had swapped roles from the start. Anyway, the situation goes on and on and there's full frontal nudity of Hopper and Irving, yet the picture as a whole is cool, clinical, and not very erotic. Even without a knee gash, I wasn't carried away by Carried Away. Its one asset for me is Busey, otherwise I'd give it a WOOF! Based on the Jim Thompson novel Farmer. AKA: Acts of Love.

1995 (R) 107m/C Dennis Hopper, Amy Irving, Amy Locane, Gary Busey, Julie Harris, Hal Holbrook, Christopher Pettiet, Priscilla Pointer, Gail Cronauer; D: Bruno Barreto; W: Ed Jones; C: Declan Quinn; M: Bruce Broughton. VHS, LV, Closed Caption