Thelma & Louise (1991)

Thelma & Louise is a feminist manifesto writ large on the big screen, a smart and funny gender reversal of the standard Hollywood buddy formula, a road movie extraordinaire, with characters who became instant cultural icons. No matter how you define it, Ridley Scott's 1991 box-office hit pinched a nerve and made the cover of national news magazines for tweaking gender politics like no movie before or since. Callie Khouri's screenplay overhauls the buddy formula with its story about two best friends (Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis) who embark on a liberating adventure that turns into an interstate police chase after a traumatic incident makes both women into fugitives; they are en route to a destiny they could never have imagined. The perfect casting of Sarandon and Davis makes Thelma & Louise a movie for the ages, and Brad Pitt became an overnight star after his appearance as the con-artist cowboy who gives Davis a memorable (but costly) night in a roadside motel. --Jeff Shannon Amazon.com essential video

Exellent

This movie was exellent. It was brand new so there was nothing wrong with it. November 2, 2008

Couldn't Help Rooting for Them

It is impossible to defend everything Thelma and Louise did as events unraveled. Never mind illegalities; some of their misdeeds were deliberate and just plain wrong.

However, I consistently wanted them to make it. If Louise was not going to turn her back on Thelma, then neither was I. Louise was the brains behind the outfit. Thelma was naive and less-than-intelligent, and she cost Louise dearly many times. No one could have blamed Louise for letting Thelma go in hopes that she (Lousie) could still make it.

Louise's love and friendship for Thelma turned out to be more fierce than her instinct for survival. Who wouldn't want to be on their team?

Another compelling thing about this film is the go-for-broke mentality. As their situations deteriorate, they start pushing boundaries and limits in ways that most of us never will. It becomes impossible to look away.

If you have only ever watched this on cable, you should rent this film at least once to see the missing scene between the stranded desert cop and the Rastafarian. It offers comic relief in a tale laced with desperation. By the way, the cop was played by the actor that portrayed Demi Moore's boyfriend in GI Jane.

Michael Madsen (Virginia's brother) would have been tempting for a lot of us girls. Hats off to Louise for realizing that to a large extent he was only pursuing her because he could feel her slipping away.

I am still hoping that somehow, some way Thelma and Louise made it. In film all things are possible. October 28, 2008

Hated this movie!

I'm no Gloria Steinem but as a woman I found this way to "men hating" and all that. To me, it made women look horrible and really stuck to the bad stereotype of women. Blah! Bad accents don't help either. July 8, 2008

Good copy!

I was very pleased with this video - It was for an older woman who still uses only VHS!!!! May 2, 2008

Why can't we just have an innocent good time?

If you can imagine a blend of "9 to 5", "Smokey and the Bandit" and "Bonnie and Clyde", you should come up with an approximation of "Thelma and Louise": a mix of adventure, humor and comrade in the style of the Burt Reynold's chase movies, and getting even with the stereotypical men who try to abuse, control or recapture these 2 women intent on a short escape from their boring lives. The possession of a pistol or two and daredevil driving enables them to silence or elude most of the males who try to abuse or capture them or just have some fun with them. Clearly, Louise and Thelma initially have very different attitudes toward the men who try to seduce them. Louise makes it loud and clear she wants no part of these amorous come ons, whereas Thelma, especially after a few drinks, is often flirtaceous and sometimes willing. But, Thelma eventually learned that fooling around with strange persistent men
can have traumatic consequences, and joined Louise in rebuffing these advances. According to the DVD commentary, many in the audiences cheered and clapped when Thelma's would be rapist is shot dead by Louise for his continued obscene threating remarks in the aftermath of Louise's breakup of the rape attempt. This clearly confirms what we may conclude from the popularity of confrontational westerns and action movies: that lethal vigilante justice, when done in appropriate circumstances, is considered justified by the majority of people, regardless of what the legal system thinks and does.
One gets the impression that even if this duo didn't face probable long prison sentences, they might have become permanent runaways from their unsatisfying routine lives. It is significant that neither had children, which may have alleviated some of their dissatisfaction, and which made their overblown girls night out gone bad practical. The fact that both these women were often foul-mouthed, smoked and occasionally went to seedy bars turns off some viewers, who label them brainless white trash who perhaps deserve some of the misadventures they suffered in their attempt to have a short escape from their boring lives.
Brad Pitt and Michael Madison provide two handsome hunks for female viewers to drool over, though very different. Brad represents the perfect con man who exploits naive vulnerable women both sexually and financially. He was the perfect bad boy for Thelma to find release in. Michael represents a man who isn't willing to settle down to a permanent one on one relationship, but who is willing to make occasional sacrifices for the women he has relationships with.
The ending seems appropriate for the duo. Like Bonnie and Clyde, the pair eventually knew they were doomed to long prison sentences, or to die in a shootout, car accident or by their own device. Like Bonnie and Clyde, they were prepared to elude their pursuers as long as possible, and to engineer their deaths if capture seemed imminently certain.
This DVD is of excellent quality and includes several special features, including commentary versions by the director and by a combination of the main actresses and the screen writer. April 13, 2008

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