Ladies on the Lam
Thelma (Geena Davis), a housewife, decides to clear off with her friend Louise (Susan Sarandon), fed up of being bossed about by her disrespectful husband and having escaped the shackles of her life wants to let her hair down. Unfortunately letting her hair down at a bar and dancing with a stranger almost ends up in rape until Louise steps in to save her, but rather than walking away with Thelma she ends up shooting the guy dead. It leads to them going on the lam, hoping to make it to Mexico and encountering various people including handsome young robber J.D. (Brad Pitt). But it also leads to detectives Hal (Harvey Keitel) and Max (Stephen Tobolowsky) on their tail and closing in as they leave a trail of crime in their wake.
Let me just state right from the word go that I always thought "Thelma & Louise" was a good movie but never got why so many people rated it great. You see even back in 1991 when I first watched "Thelma & Louise" I thought okay here is a movie which sees two people on the lam and they end up getting into various scrapes from being seduced by the handsome J.D. to locking a state trooper in the trunk of his car. And don't get me wrong as all these scrapes from dealing with a sexist truck driver to robbing a store are entertaining but what was so special about them always eluded me.
Now maybe the answer is the friendship side of "Thelma & Louise" because as the movie progresses we see how close Thelma and Louise are, becoming a very close couple of criminals. Or maybe it is because we have two women in the movie's lead roles who stand up to sexist men. In doing so pretty much every man that are crime duo come across is sexist to the point it some times feels like this movie is saying all guys are sexist. I am still not entirely sure what it is that I am missing which others saw in this movie.
Having said that "Thelma & Louise" is up there when it comes to being a memorable movie and even before re-watching it there were many a scene and performance which I remembered very clearly, although some parts I had forgotten like a scene involving a spliff smoking cyclist. And as such both Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon play their parts very well and to be honest bring to life the friendship of Thelma and Louise whilst also making them a couple of criminals which you take to your hearts. Plus of course there are the men and both Brad Pitt and Harvey Keitel make their characters entertaining.
What this all boils down to is that "Thelma & Louise" is still the entertaining movie I remember it being and to be honest it is a timeless movie. But for me this is still only a very good movie and I am still wondering what it is which I am missing which others have seen which makes it great for them.
