MEDIA COOL
This coufd well be one of the best pictures of 1988. Basing his screenplay on a true story, writer-director Michael Hoffman has created a portrait of small town America during the Reagan era that, in its own way, is as harrowing as River�s Edge was last year.
MEDIA COOL
This month�s Media Cools were written by Bill Holdship, Michael Lipton, Vicki Arkoff and Karen Schoemer.
PROMISED LAND (Vestron Pictures)
This coufd well be one of the best pictures of 1988. Basing his screenplay on a true story, writer-director Michael Hoffman has created a portrait of small town America during the Reagan era that, in its own way, is as harrowing as River�s Edge was last year. Anyone who grew up in such a town will see familiar images and characters here. There are striking, subtle touches throughout: i.e., the way Reagan�s background �eagle on the mountaintop� speeches come across as comical and ironic, as well as delightful secondary characters and some hilarious albeit bittersweet scenes. The acting is superb; Kiefer Sutherland gives his most sensitive performance thus far as Danny, the town loner/loser who runs away from home, and Meg Ryan goes out on a limb, forsaking her �cute� image to play Bev, a tough, coarse and amoral vagabond. Of course, the tragic ending may seem to have no apparent rhyme or reason—but I think that�s exactly the point. Promised Land could haunt you for a long time after you leave the theater. B.H.