Undescribable Perfection

Overrated and overhyped

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Blistering performances.

Flesh And Bone is not the glamorous pair up you'd expect from a matrimonial Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan. It's a dark, grim and menacing tale of corrupted innocence, evil deeds and the sour fate that brings them full circle. Quaid plays Arlis Sweeney, a small time vending machine dealer with a dark past. His usual charm and appeal is gone here, a stormy, traumatized sheet on his face instead of that usual mile wide smile. Arlis harbors a troubling secret: He watched his no good criminal daddy murder an entire family when he was but a youngster, leaving him a haunted soul. His path crosses with rowdy, promiscuous Kay Davies (Meg Ryan) a girl with mysterious secrets of her own which eerily relate to Arlis's own past. When demon daddy re-enters his life, there's a thunderclap of portentous dread that mounts on the horizon like the ashen clouds of southern Texas where the film was shot. His name is Roy Sweeney, and he's played by a cackling James Caan, slithering into the skin of a character so unredeemable and nasty that we feel the slime emanating from the screen. He's a guy that danger follows around like a curse, and for better or for worse, Arlis must reconcile his own twisted mind and bring the legacy of bloodshed to a halt. Tagging along with Roy is a skanky and very young Gwyneth Paltrow, basically walking collateral damage. It's a heavy thriller with few breaks for breathing room, but it rolls with the violent, south western pulp we've come to love from artists like Cormac McCarthy and the like, adding it's own moody, laconic pace that heightens to unbearable tension with little notice and less flair, making it hit you all the harder. Supporting turns weigh in from Christopher Rydell, Barbara Alyn Woods, John Hawkes and character actor Scott Wilson as Arlis's dodgy business partner. Great stuff if you can shake the doom and gloom off after and hold onto the stark beauty and tragedy that it's laced with.

The Willets family finds a boy in their yard. The phone is out and they take him in for the night. His father Roy Sweeney (James Caan) comes in to rob the family but he ends up massacring them. Only the baby survives. Some thirty years later, Arlis Sweeney (Dennis Quaid) travels Texas filling his vending machines. On one of his stops, he encounters stripper Kay Davies (Meg Ryan) who pops out of a cake for a party at the bar. Instead she passes out and as a favor, Arlis takes her to his motel room. He keeps seeing grifter Ginnie (Gwyneth Paltrow) on the road and he gives Kay a ride. Arlis gets close to Kay but they don't know about their past connection.I like the haunted feel of the desolate Texas landscape. Meg Ryan is amazing as the broken Kay. I really like the feel of this movie but a couple of things bothered me a little. It's silly to keep running into Gwyneth Paltrow. Her scenes are better served if she's with James Caan. There's no real need that she keeps almost running into Dennis Quaid. The movie needs slightly more Caan. Gwyneth is good especially as a newcomer. The last act is just anti-climatic. It's missing something. I also don't understand what Roy was trying to do at the house. I guess he is simply a bad man who is torturing his son because Arlis could never tell Kay about that night. It's not like Roy wants something from Arlis. It doesn't make much sense.

This film reminded me of a combination of the work of two other people in film-making history:the haunting beauty of Terance Malick's DAYS OF HEAVEN with the sweeping cinematography and tense pacing, and that of HITCHCOCK's thrillers. The feeling of something similar to a pit- in-your-stomach something-bad's-gotta-happen keeps you glued to each scene because every shot, every glance unfolds like a great novel...uncertainty at each turn.The chemistry with the actors is visceral as well as the painful portrayal of someone so shut down, so emotionally guarded as Quaid plays it, is heartbreaking to watch. Highly recommend you go back and rent this one if you enjoy psychological thrillers. It also gave me a renewed respect for Ryan's capabilities as an actor.

Well, it's tough to find more attractive leads than real-life husband-wife Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan but the film is one ugly one. I watched it twice in the past 10 years but canned it halfway through on the second look because it just had too sleazy a feel. It leaves a bad taste in your mouth. You need to take a shower after watching this film.Like many older classic movies, this centered more on character development and was interesting for at least one look, so I'm NOT totally slamming the film. Quaid and Ryan trade off each other as adulterers in the story - which is "okay" they both say - and James Caan plays Quaid's sicko father and he's a bit scary. Gwyneth Paltrow is the final main character and she's as much, of not more, of a lowlife than the others. This was her first role in films, I've read.Ryan looks as good as she ever looked: just beautiful, but she's so trashy in here that it makes her lose her appeal. Everyone's trashy in here, actually. That's the film: trailer trash to a "T."