Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

Disturbing yet enthralling

How wonderful it is to see this fine actress carry a film and carry it so beautifully.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Outside Ozona is a creepy, quirky offbeat web of interesting characters woven into a tapestry of American life on the fringes, in the hinterlands. Numerous standout character performances spice up a slow building story- including Kevin Pollak as an acerbic, grouchy clown, Penelope Ann Miller as his stripper girlfriend . For the music fan we have the great Taj Mahal as a late night radio DJ as well as Meat Loaf as his boss- they could be their own "cant stand each other" buddy flick. The heart of the movie is in the performances of Kateri Walker and Robert Forster- he"s a trucker and she's a school teacher out of gas in unfriendly territory. My reason for writing this review is to alert fans of Robert Forsters work to this great performance- he is everything he is in Jackie Brown in this one --ENJOY

We find ourselves just outside the small town of Ozona, What now?Several characters asking the same question, in a film written and directed by J.S. Cardone. A great collection of notable actors and actresses wonderfully holding together a script that lacked not in originality but mostly in thought.Where did they go wrong?Printing it on celluloid is one answer.But beyond that, there were several wonderfully written characters that on their own, could have held up perfectly in other films. It was as if the writer, had ideas for several films and threw them into a feature length blender named Ozona. If the writer had maintained the characters separately there may have been some other notable features available rather than this. Now we are sitting at home watching a film that should be instead, the film school blueprint to Hollywood cliches. I do give the actors or actresses that were in this film the chance to remove it from their resume, and continue on with their lives in hopes of rebuilding their careers. In my personal advice, save your money, rent... a good film... Any other video on the shelf will do, please just avoid this one.

OUTSIDE OZONA / (1998) **1/2 (out of four)By Blake French: "Outside Ozona" wanders just a little too much to warrant a recommendation. It's a solid attempt from first time director and screenwriter J.S. Cardone; he creates a sordid environment for his characters and often provokes a real sense of community and compassion, but there are just too many characters and too little of a plot to carry them through. I enjoyed much of the film, enough to call this movie a close miss-but I cannot recommend a movie that doesn't know what it's about. There is so much material here, the thin plot threads quickly break apart, and the audience is the group who wishes there we're some kind of boundaries to keep everything together. The movie takes place during a single night on the stretching deserted highways outside Ozona, Oklahoma. We meet a lot of characters, too many, that all seem to live separate lives unrelated to the others. There's a circus clown (Kevin Pollack) who gets mad when he's fired, but becomes even more angry when he discovers his stripper girlfriend (Penelope Ann Miller) has previously slept with his boss to help save his job. There is a lonesome truck driver (Robert Forster) who lends a helping hand to a Navajo Indian woman, whose grandmother (Keteri Walker) is dying. Two bitter sisters (including Sherilyn Fenn) who pick up hitchhiker (David Paymer) who may or may not be a serial killer roaming the highways. The film makes several attempts to connect these stories, which we cut back and forth from throughout the film. One of those attempts deals with a disco jockey on his last strings (Taj Mahal), whose boss (Meat Loaf) isn't happy that his radio station has become under the heat of higher powers. Another attempt is the film's climax, in which all of these stories come to a literal crash. This is disposable and needless. It concludes the various circumstances, but doesn't succeed in bringing them together for a final showdown. It's kind of a disappointment. There are many scenes in which the various characters exchange lengthy conversations that really don't further the plot. But is there really a central plot? Not really. Perhaps that's why the movie doesn't work, because it has no focus, no purpose to build the tension, no story to develop. This is a simple character study. One that often becomes violent (there are some graphically bloody images) gratuitous (there's a scene in a strip club that involves so much unwarranted nudity it feels awkward), and boring (look up "talking heads" in a film analysis book and you'll probably find references to this film). Some of the characters are interesting, but with so many, the film doesn't know which ones. After all of this I forgot to mention the subplot involving the FBI tracking down a serial killer who brutally murders young women as a means of religious rituals. When you forget a subplot that major and important, you know the film's plate is a little too full.

It is a truly offbeat dream-poem of a movie about the loneliness of the open prairie roads on the graveyard shift. The plot winds together several seemingly unrelated storylines united by the fact that all the characters listen to the same two-bit radio station, and seem headed for a common fate. The tension occurs because a serial killer is roaming the highways among the usual losers, misfits, daffodils and lonely hearts.It's not quite a great movie because it tried to dominate the entire experience with murky tone and forlorn bluesy dialogue, and that is a difficult meal to concoct without grinding it all to cornball mush. The movie is the cinematic equivalent of a sad saxophone wail, and while it had some great moments, that type of mood is sometimes best left to the sax, because expressing it in dialogue can ring false and corny (the Sherilyn Fenn character was an unrealisticly shallow and cardboard cliche, for example).On the other hand, if you have a taste for the offbeat, you may really enjoy this collection of anecdotes and vignettes. Because of a "this is my song, and I'm going to sing it my way" attitude, it's more interesting than a lot of big budget studio pictures.A very eclectic cast