Waste of time

Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

Good start, but then it gets ruined

Uma Thurman is not a very good actress. She's tall, & reasonably attractive, & sometimes blonde, but she was the poster-girl for the Uber-hip set in the late 80's/early 90's so for that set, she was a perfect choice as Cissy Hankshaw. Having read & loved this book, I knew she was not a good choice, and she was subsequently was named Worst Actress of 1993 for her terrible attempt to portray Cissy. Likewise, Rain aka Rainbow aka Rain Phoenix was also miscast, as well as not being talented enough to pull off what could have been a great role, that of Boss Cowgirl Bonanza Jellybean. Rain Phoenix didn't look as if she was reading off a TelePrompter, she looked like she was A)Wondering what a TelePrompter was & B)Wondering what to to with a TelePrompter once she figured out what it was. I've seen better acting in 1950's Mexican porn. Did I detect her lips moving before she attempted to deliver her lines? The reason she was not named Worst Actress of 1993 was that to win that award, she had to be an actress, which she clearly is not. Sean Young looked so sexy I almost forgot about her psychotic meltdown over James Woods, but she showed less acting ability than in her role in "Blade Runner". Angie Dickinson, that 60's-70's retread hearthrob of teenage males was nearly as bad as Phoenix & Thurman, but she had an excuse, she hadn't worked for many years, & seemed critically hungover. That's the bad news. The good news is, the rest of the cast was a hoot! Batting leadoff, the always weird & wonderful Carol Kane & Buck Henry(why don't those two have children?? What a great idea), John Hurt in drag, Crispin Glover, Pat Morita(as Noryuki)as The Chink("Ha Ha Ho Ho and Hee Hee!!"), Keanu Reeves was entirely adequate as Julian Gitchee, but any one of a number of Native American, Canadian, or Ecuadoran actors would have been a better choice, such as the lovely & talented Gary Farmer. Two other bones to pick: 1) Tom Robbins' favorite Native American tribe, is not pronounced See-Wash, but Sigh-wash and B) Why was the locale moved from the Dakotas to Deschutes County, Oregon, and then accused of being California(rather than just Californicated)? Stupid idea. I really loved Crispin Glover & John Hurt, but their performances are not enough to tempt me to watch this terrible movie again. The personnel not named Phoenix, Young, Dickinson, or Thurman are the reason this piece of crap gets as many as two stars. Like many reviewers, anger is my strongest emotion at this attempt to adapt a really good book.

Uma Thurman plays Sissy, a young woman with a gypsy spirit (and freakishly large thumbs) who hitchhikes cross-country, eventually finding her true place amongst a group of peyote-enlightened cowgirls on a ranch devoted to preserving the Whooping Crane; Rain(bow) Phoenix is their lesbian leader, Bonanza Jellybean, who falls in love with Sissy, thumbs or not. Gus Van Sant directed and adapted Tom Robbins' book, but his satire has no primary target and just skitters all over the map, like Sissy (maybe that was his goal, but it's not involving for an audience). Notorious box-office flop wasn't so much panned as it was ignored, and one can see why: it's a series of sketches in search of a plot, and the performances, directorial touches and cinematography are all variable. Thurman is a stitch posing alongside the highway trying to get a ride, but this pretty much put the kibosh on Phoenix's career. Writer Buck Henry (who didn't write this, but perhaps should have) gives the most assured performance as the doctor who works on one of those thumbs.Two thumbs down.

We actually watched this twice in the theater because we could not believe how bad it was the first time. Maybe we'd missed something... nope, what's missing was missed from the beginning of preproduction. I actually went back to Robbin's novel to see if I could find the problem, and I discovered that what I thought was funny and exciting back in the day is now just so much disconnected and fuzzy-headed junk.So, the initial problem with the film was deciding to do it at all, and the rest of the train wreck progressed from there. Absolutely nothing works - not a blessed thing. Some beautiful exterior photography gets steamrolled by random camera placement in interior shots. All of the actors look at least uncomfortable - Angie Dickenson looks positively mortified - except for Rain Phoenix, who gives the impression that she is too unaware to realize how awful her performance really is. The dialog is one, long, unwavering cringe. Scenes don't make sense from second to second, and the connections between them are nonexistent. And yet, the movie stumbles blindly on, convinced that it is saying something profound.This is too bad to even be funny; it is simply excruciating. Gus Van Zant has done other good-to-great movies which I encourage you to see, and I'm happy he survived (and appears to have learned from) this mess.

Gus Van Sant has directed some truly brilliant films. His directorial credits include "My Own Private Idaho," "To Die For," "Drugstore Cowboy," and, most recently, the audacious and thought-provoking allegory of school violence, "Elephant." He also was the executive producer of the infamous, eye-opening "Kids." However, his reputation took a tumble with the needless, colorized shot-by-shot remake of Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho," with Vince Vaughn standing in for Anthony Perkins! However, "Even Cowgirls Get The Blues" goes down in history as one of the most witless, undramatic, incoherent, dumbest, laziest, and plot less films ever to be released upon the public. The counter-culture novel by Tom Robbins is 100% trashed here. The novel shouldn't have been filmed at such a late date anyway. Or, perhaps, it shouldn't have been filmed at all.Uma Thurman stars as Sissy Hankshaw, who somehow is a professional hitch-hiker (remember the book is set in the 60's; the movie makes no attempt to let us know exactly what time period this is supposed to be) who manages to get easy rides by sticking out her bulging, grossly large thumb. Yeah, that pulls the guys over every time.Sissy meets up with an insane slew of Hollywood stars who seem to be doing a special favor for Van Sandt. Meandering around are Roseanne Barr, John Hurt, Keanu Reeves, Crispin Glover, Carol Kane, and...are you ready...Angie Dickinson! For unknown reasons, Sissy hitches a ride to a "feminist ranch" that pampers spa services to rich women. For further unknown reasons, there's a gaggle of "cowgirls" living and working on the ranch, led by Rain Phoenix as "Bonanza Jellybean." What results is nothing...nothing at all. There is not even the slightest story to speak of. The film seems to have been edited with duct tape. Van Sandt reportedly re-edited this film furiously after it was "booed" off of the screen at various premieres. I would love to see what he cut out. He would have been better off just completely scrapping this project.But Van Sant is all forgiven for this travesty. He has gone on to prove himself as a solid director/producer. "Even Cowgirls Get The Blues" is probably the only Gus Van Sant film that you can get for $2.00 out of a bargain bin at Family Dollar.