Bitter Harvest

Travis Graham's (Stephen Baldwin) Bible-thumping father leaves the bulk of his estate to a TV evangelist, with only the farm and a coin collection going to his son. Travis is an emotionally hollow country bumpkin, beaten down by his rigorous upbringing and constantly ridiculed by his best friend, Deputy Bobby (Adam Baldwin). He's ripe for the blandishments of two seductresses who drift into town while the countryside is being terrorized by a string of bank robberies.

Foolishly, Travis allows penniless but gorgeous transient Kelly Ann (Jennifer Rubin) to set up housekeeping with him. But why is smooth-talking British realtor Jolene (Patsy Kensit) so interested in his property? By the time Sheriff Bob (M. Emmet Walsh), Deputy Bobby's dad, is gunned down during a bank heist, Travis has fallen under the sexual spell of both women, and allowed Jolene to move in too.

One of the bank robbers (the other lies dead in a getaway car abandoned in Travis's garage) breaks into the house and tries to rape Kelly Ann. Travis is stabbed and Kelly Ann shoots the intruder. Persuaded to burn the corpse to protect her, impressionable Travis is also cajoled in embarking on a robbery spree using the late robbers' plans. Elated by the high of knocking over the bank, the trio nets $7,000, but the girls are after bigger game--Travis' rare coin collection. Although Travis manages to wound the venomous Jolene, Kelly Ann opts for feminist rapport and murders him. Having gotten away with the coins and Travis' murder, the thrill-crazy good-time girls drive off to their next larcenous lark.

Travis Graham ranks among the biggest boobs ever to grace a crime thriller. Although the script carefully sets up flashbacks to remind us of his abusive childhood, neither religious hypocrisy nor sexual repression can be blamed for clouding his judgment this thoroughly. Because the characters are all ciphers, it's difficult to become involved in Travis' downward slide, and since the characters are so poorly developed, the frequent sex interludes quickly become boring. Unable to generate excitement through the cat-and-mouse game the ladies play with befuddled Travis, the screenplay tries to engineer suspense by hinting at the women's possible involvement in all the bank robberies; in the end, it turns out that the two vixens were always after the coins. Interestingly, their later impromptu robbery spree hints at a darker, and largely unexplored, subtext--that their real interest is Travis' systematic destruction, as a ritual payback for all the men who've done them wrong. And what is the relationship between the two women? Are they really sisters, or is Jolene a lesbian sister-substitute for Kelly Ann, who mentions having been rescued from her man by her sister? The movie never makes the answer clear.

While the evocative musical score and shadowy cinematography are assets, they can't compensate for a flawed screenplay and pedestrian direction. Still, the climax is a shocker (it would have been more potent if Travis were more sympathetic than pitiable). When the sisters (real or metaphorical) express their opinion of men by murdering Travis, viewers may be unsettled, and perhaps even moved. If only this slow-paced femme fatale thriller had maintained that level of involvement throughout, this might have been the disturbing shocker about dysfunctional family substitutes its makers apparently intended.(Sexual situations, extensive violence, nudity, profanity.) leave a comment