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DEADLY DESERT

Michael Butts | Martinsburg, WV USA | 04/01/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"AMERICAN STRAYS is a disjointed, sometimes frustrating movie, but it is outrageously funny at times, and the cast is superb. Sure, there are a lot of unanswered questions as to how these guys all end up in the same cafe; why and when did they do their respective crimes, etc., etc., and ultimately, why the suicide storyline is needed at all, since it doesn't tie in with the remaining storylines. But it has some unusual storylines, and as they all kind of mesh toward the end, we can see writer/director Michael Covert's assessment of violence and how easily it has become such a "normal" thing in our society. Luke Perry is the suicidal young man who hires the Exterminator (Flash Gordon's Sam Jones, still a strong force in this film) to help him commit suicide. Vaccum cleaner salesman John Savage (in one of his best performances) is scouring the desert looking for "lonely" people he can bump off under the pretense of selling his wares. He meets his match in the seductively flaky Jennifer Tilly (superb) as a lonely woman who bumps off traveling salesmen; James Russo and the late Joe Viterelli play a couple of hitmen who have a cop in their trunk and who argue about Viterelli's family lineage; Carol Kane plays the accented owner of the cafe who has little to do but as always does it well; Scott Plank and Melora Walters are bank robbers who are planning to get married since she is pregnant with his child; Anthony Lee and Vondo Sweet as two "bruthas" whose past we don't know a whole lot about, but it is Lee whose assessment of the Star Spangled Banner resonates in the final shootout; and finally, we have Eric Roberts and Toni Kalem as a married couple with two obnoxious children who are obviously moving to a new home since he has somehow lost his job and has no money. His attempts to feed his family are tragically noble and hilarious when the shootout begins.

AMERICAN STRAYS is not your average movie, but it kept me highly entertained and that's what I look for in any kind of movie."