Having read several user reviews, all glowing and full of praise, I am surely the outlier here and will most likely find disapproval, but I can take it.
For some reason, the second viewing of this film wasn't nearly as powerful as the first. I feel very strongly that it should have been reduced by 30 minutes as it seemed to lag during the several biker gang sequences. I got the message very, very early that the mother, Rusty Dennis, was unconventional, hard as nails, and loved the fast and dangerous life in spite of the special needs required by her son, Rocky, who was diagnosed with a rare, disfiguring disease called craniodiaphyseal dysplasia. In spite of her love and devotion to Rocky, I still found Rusty to be a very disagreeable character for many reasons, and I am sure that I would not have liked her if I knew her in real life. Still, Cher was extremely photogenic and did an excellent job with the script that was handed to her, and Eric Stoltz was outstanding as Rocky. I was disturbed by the total waste of two great talents, Estelle Getty and Richard Dysart, as the very unremarkable grandparents. Anyone could have played those roles. For me, Sam Elliot was very one dimensional and tended to react with the same bland facial expressions again and again. Perhaps this is what the character, Gar, required, but I had trouble empathizing with both him and Rusty.
Although cinematographer Laszlo Kovacs captured the rather sterile, dusty atmosphere of Azusa, California very well, I found the soundtrack to be mostly annoying. Although I was born and raised in Central Jersey at the same time as Bruce Springsteen, for the most part, I could never appreciate his music or his singing voice, and I'm not apologizing to anyone for my opinion. For me, it was just one more disagreeable element, but, Stoltz and Kovacs saved the entire project.
For some reason, the second viewing of this film wasn't nearly as powerful as the first. I feel very strongly that it should have been reduced by 30 minutes as it seemed to lag during the several biker gang sequences. I got the message very, very early that the mother, Rusty Dennis, was unconventional, hard as nails, and loved the fast and dangerous life in spite of the special needs required by her son, Rocky, who was diagnosed with a rare, disfiguring disease called craniodiaphyseal dysplasia. In spite of her love and devotion to Rocky, I still found Rusty to be a very disagreeable character for many reasons, and I am sure that I would not have liked her if I knew her in real life. Still, Cher was extremely photogenic and did an excellent job with the script that was handed to her, and Eric Stoltz was outstanding as Rocky. I was disturbed by the total waste of two great talents, Estelle Getty and Richard Dysart, as the very unremarkable grandparents. Anyone could have played those roles. For me, Sam Elliot was very one dimensional and tended to react with the same bland facial expressions again and again. Perhaps this is what the character, Gar, required, but I had trouble empathizing with both him and Rusty.
Although cinematographer Laszlo Kovacs captured the rather sterile, dusty atmosphere of Azusa, California very well, I found the soundtrack to be mostly annoying. Although I was born and raised in Central Jersey at the same time as Bruce Springsteen, for the most part, I could never appreciate his music or his singing voice, and I'm not apologizing to anyone for my opinion. For me, it was just one more disagreeable element, but, Stoltz and Kovacs saved the entire project.