Nearly ten years after his second directorial effort, THE LAST MOVIE (1971) was savaged by nearly everyone who bother to see it, Dennis Hopper returned to directing almost by accident. Slated to star in this modest Canadian film, Hopper stepped behind the camera when original director
Leonard Yakin quit. Hopper also reworked much of the Yakir's script, and the result is a fitful, altogether harrowing study of a family in dissolution.
Hopper plays Don, the father of CeBe (DAYS OF HEAVEN's Linda Manz), a disaffected, confused, and fatalistic teenager. Don has served a five-year prison term for a drunk-driving accident in which several children were killed. In the meantime, his wife, Kathy (Sharon Farrell), has immersed herself
sex and drugs. CeBe takes refuge in the gutted remains of the truck her father was driving in the accident, and in her despair hatches a terrible plan. Hopper was able to extract some painfully real moments from himself and his cast, making OUT OF THE BLUE a cold, critical, unflinching gaze at the
destructive potential of a few things its director knew something about: sexual freedom, booze and drugs. leave a comment
