The Electric Horseman
(1979)
Director Sydney Pollack’s fourth teaming
with Robert Redford (and second with Jane Fonda) is a warm but “soft” critique
of the erosion of individual values and the encroaching blight of corporate
greed. Just the kind of fare you’d expect from the lead duo, really, but a bit
lacking in teeth when it comes down to it. Also a bit lacking in logic in
places, but it’s clear that star and director have their eyes on the bigger
message rather than the “minutae” of plotting.
Washed-up rodeo star Sonny Steele (Redford)
has been reduced to selling breakfast cereal (Ranch Breakfast!). He spends most
of his time drunk or making public appearances in a suit bedecked with lights,
riding a twelve million dollar race horse (owned by the company). Or both. When
he discovers that his employers have been drugging said horse, mistreating it
and pumping it full of steroids, Sonny rides her off the Vegas strip and a
national manhunt for him and gee-gee begins. Jane Fonda’s journalist (Hallie
Martin) quickly works out where Steele is, and tags along with him in his
effort to release the horse into the wild. Of course, romance blossoms.
Pollack’s film might have been more satisfying
if it had kept in focus the clash between big business and the individual. As
such, the first half is the most satisfying, as jaded Steele discovers that he does actually care. The corporation,
meanwhile, attempts to manipulate the media and exercise as much damage
limitation as possible to present Steele in a bad light. One can’t help but
feel that more could have been made of this, particularly as John Saxon’s mogul
is a delightfully malign force; the more he is built up, the more pleasure
there is to be had in Sonny getting the better of him. However, in the second
half, the already leisurely pace reduces to an amble, as Sonny and Hallie
travel by foot to a remote canyon to release the equine.
One might suggest that Sonny’s journey
represents the rediscovery of traditional American values within him. But,
despite the cowboy iconography, Pollack never really seems to be hearkening
back to a bygone era so much as pointing out an awareness of what has been lost
as a value within us. Both Sonny and the horse break free from the corrupting
influence of a society founded upon money above all else, and they do so by
leaving behind the urban jungle (overtly represented by Las Vegas as a wretched
hive of scum and villainy) to be cleansed by the natural world.
Along the way, Fonda’s fastidious reporter
is taught to lighten up too, even though she doesn’t ultimately break with her
lifestyle. This isn’t a great Fonda role, truth be told; her chemistry with
Redford is ever-present, but the character is overly-familiar and far less
engaging than her journo in the same year’s The
China Syndrome. In addition, Fonda’s hampered by an extremely unflattering
perm.
Realism is low on the film’s list of
priorities. Particularly anomalous is Sonny’s concern for the horse, which he
then rides the hell out of to escape the law. Perhaps not the most remedial of
treatments (and, I’m no horse whisperer, but would she actually take to the
wild?) But this is all metaphor, and as such the whole is gently persuasive.
And crowd-pleasing; Pollack throws in an extended chase sequence halfway
through the film. If nothing else the ability to outrun police vehicles and
cause mass carnage should inform the viewer that this is not to be taken too
literally.
This was Willie Nelson’s first acting role,
as one of Redford’s aides, and he acquits himself agreeably. Wilford Brimley
appears too (an ex rodeo rider himself); he also appeared with Fonda in The China Syndrome.
***