City Slickers

“City Slickers” is the story of three friends enduring middle age. Billy Crystal leads the cast as Mitch, a burned out corporate slug grappling with a wicked identity crisis. He hates his job. His relationship with his kids is a self-fulfilling prophecy – he sees himself as a failure, so they see him as such. His wife is too scared of his crisis to be of any help.

Enter his two best friends, Phil (Daniel Stern) and Ed (Bruno Kirby), each of whom is battling their own mid-life crisis. Phil has just separated from his wife after an affair, and Ed jumps from one woman to the next. Ed leads the trio from one adventure to another – from scuba diving to parachuting to running with the bulls in Spain. His newest idea is cattle ranching. They learn early on that it’s not a dude ranch. They’re hustling real cows on real horses through several hundred of real miles of frontier wilderness. Jack Palance, who won an Oscar for his role, plays their trail boss. He’s a real cowboy, dressed head to toe in leather, and despite very limited screen time and even more limited dialogue, Palance owns the movie.

Crystal is at the top of his game, surrounded by a funny cast and a good script. Once you overlook its sappy, meaning-of-life stuff, the film’s theme is actually really profound. It’s about regaining opportunities wasted in youth. In the end, the trio of friends has gained from their adventure a hope for the future.