I love this movie so much

Such a frustrating disappointment

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Director Jim McBride does manage to create a fairly amusing film based on the classic, highly regarded French film that inspired him to become a director in the first place - Jean-Luc Godards' "Breathless".The story set up is basically the same, as Richard Gere, in one of his most electric film performances, plays Jesse Lujack, an arrogant, authority defying punk, who in his attempt to get to L.A. quickly from Las Vegas, steals a car and accidentally shoots a cop (who later dies). However, this film has more to do with his energetic pursuit of the love of his life, French student Monica Poiccard (Valerie Kaprisky), than anything else.Incidentally, one can see how Geres' performance may affect ones' feelings about the film. It is an acquired taste, as is the character of Jesse, who's a big fan of Jerry Lee Lewis music and Silver Surfer comics. You also wish he'd shut the hell up about going to Mexico. But there's no denying the actors' conviction in playing this person. The stunning 19 year old Kaprisky remains a prime visual attraction, and both she and Gere do get nude for the film.McBride does give the film a decent amount of flash, and populates the story (he co-wrote the screenplay with L.M. Kit Carson) with striking faces and striking characters. A rich cast includes such people as John P. Ryan, as a hard driving detective, film director and designer Eugene Lourie as an architect, playwright Miguel Pinero as Carlito, James Hong as a grocer, Waldemar Kalinowski, also a production designer (and occasional actor), and Art Metrano as a criminal lowlife. The city of L.A. becomes a character in its own right, with much of the film shot on location rather than on any sort of set.The soundtrack is eclectic, with the expected usage of Jerry Lee tunes and a rocking end credits cover by X.This won't be for everybody, and it does admittedly go on longer than it should. It's at its best when it focuses on Monica; Kaprisky is definitely a grounding force for the story. Kaprisky remains compulsively watchable throughout.All in all, this is engaging in spurts, and it has enough style, sex appeal, and humour to make it a decent viewing experience.Six out of 10.

Okay, so the idea is to achieve emptiness so that we may be actually informed by what it is we see. To train an eye for details that doesn't react or classify or evaluate but instead grasps effortlessly the totality of what a film means to us. In this process, naturally we have to discard our preconceptions and routine streams of thought; who made the film, is it art-house, does it belong in a list of masterpieces.A bunch of those here; a remake of a well known French film, the presence of Richard Gere (usually signifying fluff), the very idea of a film that never made much sense to begin with. Who needs a Breathless remake, much less the Hollywood version? But we got it, so what about it? The Godard film was about young people coming to discover for the first time the struggle with important things, about love and meaning dealt with in the pretentious, silly, superficial ways of youth. What tied the struggle together was a boyhood fantasy about movies. We had a protagonist acting out an imaginary gangster part and the reality of the film arranged around him as a movie plot in which to act the part. It was about the safe distance provided by the fictional as conflated into the emotional distance between two people.Now watch how the remake transcribes this. Richard Gere is the Michel Poiccard character but instead of Bogart he is a Clark Gable. A movie hunk 'exhuding studly scent' as another reviewer aptly puts it. Recklessly oblivious to anything but the present moment and what it has to offer, he is the very dream of movies. A doofus at first sight but who instinctively seems to have grasped the essence of life by the balls. As much a target of ridicule as admiration. We see him empathize with utmost seriousness with Silver Surfer comics! Something akin to a destiny for him.But we're not inside him, we're siding with the French girl who's come to LA to study architecture. The girl who plans, thinks, wants the buildings she will create to last. The perfectly logical human being who (along with us) is swept away by the irresistible allure of an existence without bounds, centered in the 'now' and radiating outwards. Valerie Kapriskie is a perfect match here, an Ali McGraw to Steve McQueen; she's great because she can't act to hide what seems a genuine infatuation with Gere's adolescent antics (mixed with genuine frustration).We travel with them through a fetish dream of LA. Cars are fire-engine red Thunderbirds, summer dresses and even telephones pink. I've been going this month through a phase of cinematic vacation in Los Angeles, and this one has the best sense of place of anything I've seen yet. The dark joint with the jukebox, the empty streets blowing with hot summer wind.But it's more than a ride of pure, exhilarating movie pleasure, there's something to talk about here.It's peppered throughout, but centered in a scene by a pool. The girl wants to know what is behind the man's face, what kind of nothingness. He blurts something about love, no doubt cribbed from some magazine. A little later an aging architect, who no doubt has been where she is and has come to understand the world, tells her that nothing that is built lasts.And the best part, taken from the pages of a Silver Surfer comic. I won't go into details, but it says something about us, the sentient beings narrating our story, removed from our heart yet discovering it in every reflection. It makes for perfect Zen.So we have this hip-swivelling, rock'n'roll Zorba the Greek, who is empty inside in the best sense possible, so that he is filled with everything. Like only a blank sheet of paper can be clearly written on.And he's on the run for a fateful mistake of shooting a cop. How the scene is edited is important; we see a windshield shatter, then Gere looking with astonishment at the pistol in his hand. Elements crucially missing from the edit (the action itself) reveal the emotional state; how many mistakes can we look back on and be perplexed how we let them happen? There's more to it. There's a marvellous love scene in a movie theater playing Gun Crazy (which the film is reversed from). The two lovers roll around as behind them loom huge footage of the fictional couple in Gun Crazy discussing what pertains to the two lovers.And before the climax, we ride all the way up to a property overlooking the LA nightscape. Errol Flynn's as we find out, again movieland.It is better than the Godard film, miles better. It's as much about the old tropes of sex and violence as that film, except it's filled with actual heart. It is about kitsch elevated into noble gesture, about reality dismantled into fiction and the opposite. Novice film buffs discovering a sense of importance with Tarkovsky and Malick will find little in this simple film to appreciate; but those who've done their rounds and are looking for specific things may be strangely fulfilled by this.

Richard Gere acts like a total geek in this movie. stuck on jerry lee lewis music which blieves he is like him. a pretty boy car thief hoodlum wannabe. he acts more like a girl than the girl who hes attracted to... shaking and gyrating like hes Elvis or something. what a wimp!!! i didn't like the movie when it came out and i don't like the movie now that i have just watchd it again. the actress is worth watchn and does a great job. she makes the movie worth while. cop killer.. an accident that couldn't have happened to a better character. no recommendation here! like most of the other reviewers said, the ending was stupid too. only in the movies!!!

Bad boy from Las Vegas--into stealing cars and reading comic books--chases after a French college student in Los Angeles after a two-night stand in a hotel room has left him breathless. He's anxious to get to Mexico after (rather abstractly) shooting and killing a police officer, but she's more the responsible type and feels torn. American rewrite of 1960's "À bout de soufflé" with the character's nationalities flip-flopped; trendily irresponsible in 1983, but not a good idea then or now. Richard Gere, frequently lapsing into baby talk (with a cigarette dangling from his mouth), tries acting reckless but it's not in him to be a dumb mug. Newcomer Valérie Kaprisky seems to have all the males panting in her wake, but we are never sure why--she runs hot and cold throughout, and her mincing speech patterns are even more annoying than Gere's. Director Jim McBride encourages his stars to go for broke, but the results are still lethargic. *1/2 from ****