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In
the summer of '71, five University of Texas seniors, facing the
draft and uncertain futures, decide to have one final blowout before
joining the rat race.
Gardener
Barnes (Kevin
Costner),
the leader of the Groovers, pines for lost love and seems to be
constantly on the move, so he won’t have time to think about the
girl he let get away (Suzi
Amis).
He has failed to meet academic standards and has received his draft
notice.
Waggener
(Sam Robards)
is to marry the girl Gardener let get away. He, too, has received
his draft notice -- so he calls the wedding off.
Phillip
Hicks (Judd
Nelson) is in the ROTC and is pretty
gung-ho about the war. He tries to be the voice of reason and
maturity, amid the chaos, but comes off as whiny and annoying, so
the rest aren’t listening. The group is rounded out by Dorman (Chuck
Bush), the gentle
giant who is always full of surprises, and Lester (Brian
Cesak), a summa
cum laude CPA who is in a drunken coma -- for the entire film.
They
all pile into Phil’s Cadillac and blaze a trail across southern
Texas, towards Mexico, leaving behind a trail of destruction and
empty beer bottles. (We
deduce that the group made a similar trip when they were freshman.)
Gardener decides that it’s time to head to the border and dig up
Dom.
(Who’s Dom? Did somebody die?)
Ignoring
Phil’s protests, the Caddy roars towards Mexico and Chata Ortegas,
for margaritas and a chance to see the Donkey Lady. (Now
there’s a mental image.)
There
are a few hilarious detours along the way. The best is a pit stop at
the Pecos Parachute School where Phillip has to prove his manhood by
surviving a jump. The school is run by Truman Sparks (Marvin
McIntyre), a
Vietnam vet who is, shall we say, chemically altered.
Things go from bad to worse with a mix up in the laundry. Those left
on the ground desperately try and communicate with the radio-less
plane, that Phil’s parachute is nothing but a load of dirty socks.
Does
Phillip survive? Do they find Dom? Will Waggener, wracked with
regret, change his mind and get married? Will Gardener skip off to
Mexico and dodge the draft? Will Lester ever wake up?
Who
am I to spoil the end?
Not
quite the end
Road
trip!
Ah,
the call of the wild. The clarion call to dubious, if not totally
legal, action. My gang’s road trips were usually an attempt to
match, or were inspired by, the antics of the Groovers in the
ultimate road trip movie, Fandango.
One
of the most memorable road trips I partook was in '98, when I,
Nekkid Bill and Big Dave, headed to Kansas City for a Cubs/Royals
game in hopes to see m'man Sammy Sosa continue his home run binge. It
was about 150 degrees outside and Big Dave’s death van had no air
conditioner. About ten miles outside of Abilene, we blew a tire. We
slapped on the spare and continued the trip. Unbeknownst to us,
however, was the fact that the blowout caused the tailpipe to be
bent up and it started pumping exhaust fumes through a hole in the
back of the cargo van.
As
we pressed on to KC, everyone’s eyes started burning and a few of
us started tripping out. I was stuck in the back and my sense of
smell is non-existent. We figured it was just the extreme heat.
Thank god for that Stuckey’s where we stopped and aired out. We
didn’t discover the cause of out psychedelics until we were half
way home, when someone else got stuck in the back and smelled the
fumes.
We’ve
had better, less life threatening, ones. Sneaking into the Scotts
Bluff Zoo’s campground to spend the night, the
pilgrimage to Wrigley Field and Devil’s Tower. I have a lot more
stories but let’s get back to the film.
Fandango
started as a student film project by Kevin Reynolds called Proof.
Somehow Steven Spielberg saw it, liked it, and helped finance its
expansion into a feature length film.
On
one hand it’s a very funny film. Trying to water ski with the
Caddy, behind a train, comes to mind. And I really like the way
Dorman carries the comatose Lester everywhere, so he won't miss
anything. There is a real camaraderie among the Groovers, all of
them integral, sometimes irritating, spiteful and hateful, but just
like any family the love is still there.
The
film is also melancholy. There are just as many morose scenes
balancing out the wild ones. They travel to the set of James Dean's Giant,
only to find a hollowed out structure. Ortega's has burned down and
it seems that no matter how hard they try, they just can't seem to
capture the old thunder.
Like
Phillip says, "You're only 18 once, like you're only a virgin
once." And in the end, facing the inevitable, and without much
fanfare, the group quietly breaks up.
Admittedly,
this movie will have a bigger effect on you if you have a solid
group of friends that you can easily identify with as characters in
the film. I do, and I'm always a "can-do" for any road
trip that tries to recapture a little thunder and "celebrate
the privileges of youth" before "our bodies are sacrificed
to the road of life."
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I
encourage everyone to find a zoo with a campground and spend the
night there, sleeping under the stars. It’s a little unnerving,
trying to catch some Z’s, while listening to the animals prowl
around, especially the big cats but believe me it’s a real trip.
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