Urban Cowboy [1980]

[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]

Sometimes one must ask the question: is this movie unpleasantly bad or just not for me? In the case of "Urban Cowboy" the answer is both. In the beginning we thought this might be promising as a bad movie. It initially reminded us of "Road House" a bit and we basically decided to watch it because the DVD case screams "homoeroticism that lacks self awareness" like "Top Gun." The movie didn't deliver on either end. 

The plot of "Urban Cowboy" is simple and horrible. A guy from a remote part of Texas moves to the big city of Houston where he spends all his time in the same large bar. He meets a girl there, treats her horribly and beats her, but she marries him anyway in a strange smash cut 30 minutes in. It was at that point we realized the movie was two hours and fifteen minutes long and it had only just finished its introduction. We watched the rest of the movie on 1.5 speed with subtitles and it didn't make it any worse or better. Cowboy wants to mechanical bull ride but doesn't want his wife to because misogyny. They fight a lot. He hits her more. He gets jealous of her bull riding skills when he forbid her to do it. He sleeps with an oil tycoon's daughter to show her. She sleeps with and starts shaking up with an ex-con who also beats her but more often. Eventually this all boils down to a riding competition between the cowboy and the ex-con. The cowboy wins. The ex-con tries to steal the prize money and the cowboy saves the day while also getting his wife back for some reason. No one has learned anything. The cowboy is still a jerk but now has $5000, presumably enough to upgrade their trailer. The wife really likes abusive men and takes back the cowboy with literally no evidence that he has grown or changed. If this is anyone's fantasy, you have to analyze your life. At least the devil went down to Georgia guy was there.

So apparently people in the 80s liked this movie because while many reviews talk about how it hasn't aged well, it still has a weirdly high rotten tomatoes rating. Ignoring the fact that nothing about this story appeals to anyone in the Bad Movie Night crew, the movie has a very real flaw as a regular film: the writing. This movie seems to have a basic understanding of plot points but not things like "dynamic character" or "payoff" or the fact that things should happen to move the plot forward and connect plot points.

Even if you are a cowboy or cowboy lover, I don't understand why you would like this misogynistic, boring dribble. You'd be better off reading a Harlequin romance.

Spoon Rating: 1 Lone Star.