Bail Jumper

A quirky, charming odyssey through a dusty, disaster-ridden America, BAIL JUMPER restores a sense of exhilaration to the road movie. The determinedly deadpan humor, sudden--albeit harmless--outbursts, strong visuals, and eccentric cast may recall the work of Jim Jarmusch, but director Christian Faber has his own style, which is much livelier and less detached than Jarmusch's approach. Beautifully edited, the film moves along snappily with none of the longeurs that have become Jarmusch's signature.

Joe (B.J. Spalding) and Elaine (Eszter Balint) are a pair of endlessly bickering lovers in Murky Springs, Missouri. To describe Joe as an underachiever would b...