SHORT TAKES
LOLLY MADONNA XXX (MGM) This is sort of second-rate Peckinpah, but even third-rate Peckinpah would still have a vitality which is absent from most of Hollywood. The theme is a little awry from what Sam might have made it — it is closer to Deliverance, in fact — but the action and the actors (especially Robert Ryan, who looks even more haunted here than he did in The Wild Bunch) are the sort he might have chosen, even Jeff Bridges as another kind of hero.
SHORT TAKES
LOLLY MADONNA XXX (MGM) This is sort of second-rate Peckinpah, but even third-rate Peckinpah would still have a vitality which is absent from most of Hollywood. The theme is a little awry from what Sam might have made it — it is closer to Deliverance, in fact — but the action and the actors (especially Robert Ryan, who looks even more haunted here than he did in The Wild Bunch) are the sort he might have chosen, even Jeff Bridges as another kind of hero. In fact, Lolly could also be called a bloody Tennessee hills version of The Last Picture Show. Dark and depressing as it is, there’s probably as much in Lolly Madonna as in any other first-run movie of the moment. It’s tough and where can you get that these days?
