Call of the Wild

By Richard Schnickel

THE ELECTRIC HORSEMAN Directed by Sydney Pollack Screenplay by Robert Garland

His name is Sonny Steele. He is played by Robert Redford. He is the ultimate Rhinestone Cowboy, a five-time world's champion rodeo rider now reduced morally, if not economically, by having to hustle Ranch Breakfast, a conglomerate's cereal. He is frequently obliged to ride out into darkened stadiums wearing a suitful of colored lights while carrying a snootful of whisky in order to dull the pain of exploitation.

Her name is Hallie Martin. She is played by Jane Fonda. She is a TV newshen, very chic, and ambitious for a big story, though looking for it in an unlikely place, the conglomerate's annual meeting at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

The horse is Rising Star, played by Let's Merge. It is a great race horse now retired, not to stud but to serve as a corporate symbol with Sonny. The horse is not a boozer, but he is on tranquilizers and steroids to ease him through his form of celebrity life. When Sonny's outrage at what is being done to Rising Star burns through his cynical haze, he decides to kidnap the horse and return him to a wild state more suited to his nature.

Anyone can guess what happens to the film's three principals once Redford galvanizes himself. Boy gets horse. Girl gets story (and also ceases to be merely a pesky observer and becomes an impassioned participant in Sonny's adventure). The populace learns the truth about the evil capitalists and rallies to the side of the beleaguered rebels. Why, boy and girl even get each other, if briefly. It's a story as old as talkies--dating back to Frank Capra's populist comedies.

Yet rarely in recent years has this tale been told in such an agreeably inventive way. The scene in which Sonny abducts Rising Star is a case in point. The cowboy simply hops aboard the animal and clippety-clops him straight down the runway of the industrial show in which they're both appearing, past the dancing girls, past the hysterical director, through the audience, past the slot machines in the lobby and on down the Las Vegas strip. The scene is an outrageous assault on probability, but in its unexpectedness, it is a delight. Fonda's pursuit of Redford and the authorities' pursuit of all three fugitives are full of similar surprises, including a fine action sequence in which horse and rider twist and turn through town and countryside, eluding with skill and heart the mechanized klutzes who are after them. Here, too, there are improbabilities: an effete Thoroughbred flat racer could not really move like a cow pony or return him to nature as easily as this movie suggests. But even at the end there is a neat plot twist that distracts from taking the story too literally and gives the picture a strong finishing kick.

Still, the film probably works so well because of Redford. Oh, due credit to Fonda: here, in direct contrast to the development of a similar character in The China Syndrome, she moves from knowledgeability to vulnerability, and does it with the same winning grace. But Redford, making his first major appearance in almost four years, is in top form. He's a knothead, trying to disguise his essentially moral nature and his native shrewdness with a lot of good-ole-boy aw shucksing. There is tension, good observation and fine comic timing in his work.

It's obvious both stars saw this film as a vehicle to advocate causes they care about, but they are good-natured about it. Writer Garland and Director Pollack had the sense to give Horseman the tone of a pop fable; they stress entertainment over preachment. A romantic intensity that Fonda and Redford might have generated is lost as a result; there could have been more electricity between the electric horseman and his lady. And Willie Nelson, the great country singer, is wasted in his first acting role. Still, there is not a more cheerful or engaging movie around these days. One can't help coming out of it in smiling good temper, having spent a fine time with nice, but catchily eccentric people. --Richard Schickel

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