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Text I sent to Mattfest Programming Director aipohaku: The Tex plot is all over the place! Hitchhiker with a gun? What the heck!
Far too many things happen in Tex (1982). It seems to not know what kind of movie it wants to be. Or is it supposed to show—like many teen movies—that a teenager's life is filled with all sorts of misadventures and antics? Maybe it was the score that overwhelmed the action.
Strong performances by Matt Dillon in the title role and Jim Metzler as Tex's brother. Why haven't I seen more of Metzler? I can't believe I'm about to complain about having an actual Asian American in the cast (please don't take my Asian American membership card away), but Meg Tilly as the love interest? That's all good and fine, if she came from a Chinese American family. The Collins family though, clearly a good ol' white Oklahoman family. Is there any way she was supposed to be adopted? When Alex and I traveled through Oklahoma, I can assure you we saw zero Asians other than each other; I can't imagine there being that many up for adoption (edit: in that fictional town, in the 1970s), but this movie has everything including drug dealers, an absentee father, an overgrown Dillon portraying a 15 year old, horses, teen pregnancy, car crash, and Emilio Estevez as Meg Tilly's brother.
I've never read the source material, S.E. Hinton's novel. Does the film stay true to her words? Let me know. And let me know what you think of the film in the comments. (I think aipohaku and I are the only ones participating in Mattfest; surprise me and say you're watching along with us.)
Since 2006
1 comment:
What? Meg Tilly's part Asian? I loved S.E. Hinton's books. The movies were almost as good as her novels. This was Matt Dillon's first movie based on an S.E. Hinton novel and it gets better with Coppola's THE OUTSIDERS and RUMBLEFISH. Did you spot the S.E. Hinton in this movie?
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