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Lookin' To Get Out is directed by Hal Ashby and stars
Jon Voight, Burt Young, and Ann-Margaret. The film was originally
released in 1982. This disc represents Hal Ashby's original
cut of the film, which features footage not seen in the
1982 theatrical release. ***
Lookin' To Get Out follows a compulsive gambler who
foolishly gambles away his winings from a recent bet to
hoods. To evade the wrath of the hoods, he flees to Vegas,
where he hopes to gamble some more, in an effort to pay
off his debts. ***
Lookin' To Get Out is a difficult movie to review.
It's clear with this film that Ashby was trying to recapture
the entertainment of the long-forgotten screwball comedy
genre. Sadly, the attempt is short, and it's sad to say
that the critics who panned the movie were largely correct
with their scathing reviews. ***
This film had a lot of good ideas going, but the end
result just doesn't live up to the sum of its parts. Jon
Voight is great in dramatic roles, but as he shows us here,
comedic roles are not his forte. The fact that the characters
are one-dimensional and not sympathetic in the least doesn't
help things any. The writing and direction are sloppy and
it isn't hard to say that it hasn't aged well. I applaud
Warner Bros. for finding this long-lost extended version
of the movie, but the movie itself just isn't that entertaining.
***
As an interesting piece of trivia, however, Angelina
Jolie (Voight's daughter) makes her feature film debut here,
in a brief scene near the end of the film.
Image And Sound:
Unfortunately, while Warner got their hands on this
rare extended version of the movie, they didn't really take
the time to clean it up. Print damage and heavy grain are
aplenty throughout. For the most part, it isn't a bad looking
film, but you'll wish they'd made SOME effort to clean the
film up before porting it to DVD. Audio is presented in
the original mono, and this track hasn't aged much better
than the accompanying video.
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