| "Bandits"
By Andrew Curry
The Miami Herald
Weekend section, Friday,
October 30, 1998
While the soundtracks
of most movies stay unobtrusively in the background, "Bandits," a German
film about a four-woman rock band on the lam, is all about the music --
so much so that its musicvideo sequences end up overshadowing plot and
action.
Bandits is sort
of an upbeat Thelma and Louise: Four angry female prisoners form a band
in an inmate-reform scheme. Their unplanned prison break just before a
policeman's ball not only embarrasses politicians and police but also becomes
a publicity bonanza.
As the women
flee across the German countryside (the incompetent cops always a step
behind), their fugitive status and good looks put their jailhouse demo
tape on top of the charts and their faces on billboards all over the country.
Their rock star
status makes life on the run exciting, but the writers seem to lose interest
just as things get complicated. A confused mess of music video montages
drowns out the rest of the action, depicting the foursome in a variety
of sexy romps that clash with the plot.
[This was my
only movie review to be quoted in a preview. They pulled four words:
"an upbeat Thelma and Louise!" says Andrew Curry of The Miami Herald.
I was pissed.]
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