Review

Yowsah! Yowsah! Yowsah! I just love good movies. I love when movies are just plain good, well-directed. They've got a simple premise that is very well executed with a tight script. So They Shoot Horses is a Depression Era movie, though mercifully we find ourselves in California this time. No Dust Bowl antics here. The plot is we're seeing on of those marathon dance competitions that happened during that era. The ones that would go for over 1000 hours...The winning couple gets $1500. Do not let the PG rating fool you, there is darkness here.

They Shoot Horses stars Jane Fonda (excellent excellent performance from her) among some other people whom I don't know but also give great performances. What's the story? Well, we just have a marathon dance competition...and then drama ensues. This is a bit in that subgenre I'm a sicko for. Which is: high drama, limited setting. Probably 90% of the film is either in the dance floor or in the two locker rooms. We're generally not straying far outside of that. And that's basically it. It's one of those film where the events themselves are quite direct and simple but it's about humanity and America. I mean it is set during the Depression, ok.

The way the dance works is you've got a bunch of couples, you dance for 2 hours, and then you get a 10 minute break. And then the dance continues. It continues, again, for weeks and weeks. If you stop dancing, you're out. And this shit actually happened. $1500 is a lot of money, people are real desperate. I don't think I'll say much more about the film, because it's worth going in pretty blind. Suffice it to say, this is a very good example of some real early New Hollywood filmmaking. It feels very similar to later 70s stuff to me. For those who are familiar with The List films, the director Sydney Pollack also did Tootsie. And I will say that Tootsie is a very different sort of feel, though They Shoot Horses is of a similar quality.