Cadillac Ranch

Cadillac Ranch -- The Pitch: Feisty, nubile chicks on the lam/Red convertible/Suitcase full of stolen boodle/Cross-country pursuit by psychotic villain/Hunky, sensitive male collaborator/Female empowerment generously seasoned with T&A… Jaded studio execs' heads nod impatiently over plates of Thai duck curry. “Okay pal, save your breath -- we get the picture. Your money'll be in the bank Tuesday.” As fervently as we might wish otherwise, originality is a virtual non-factor in modern Hollywood's red light/green light decisions, and lackluster echo-films like Cadillac Ranch are the result. Thelma & Louise is the most obvious touchstone for Lisa Gottlieb's debut feature about three sisters (Amis, Ashby, and Feeney) who are racing a fearsome bad guy (Lloyd) to the titular Amarillo tourist shrine, where their jailbird father has stashed money from a robbery. Ranked among similarly themed movies, Cadillac Ranch probably fits somewhere between Love & a .45 and True Romance, with a bit more verve and charm than the former but less anarchic edge than the latter. Though it was filmed in and around Austin about two years ago, there's surprisingly little authentic Texas feel here. Instead, the filmmakers' cultural reference points seem to be Lone Star beer commercials of the Seventies, in which our vast interstate highway system is wholly replaced by dirt roads, and females under 35 are uniformly attired in skimpy cutoffs and cowboy hats. Not that I particularly object to the latter feature, especially when the willowy Suzy Amis (as the oldest and wildest of the sisters) gets the most screen time. As CJ, the sibling who was closest to dear old dad before he was framed for murder and sent to prison, her high-voltage presence repeatedly hot-wires the story when it takes dull or nonsensical turns between car chases. Feeney squeezes out a few sparks as the cynical middle sister who's romanced by a poetry-writing gas pump jockey, but the lavishly talented Humphrey (Fun) is largely wasted in the cartoonish role of the baby daughter -- a newly minted lawyer with a penchant for dancing in her lingerie. Give Gottlieb her due: Simply by consolidating a fair amount of acting talent in one place, Cadillac Ranch manages to generate more entertainment value than anyone had a right to expect. Still, I beseech the movie industry to pull the plug on a film genre that's long since lapsed into an irreversible coma state. Time to put all those halter tops and red convertibles in storage for good.