Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Pretty Good

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

'What's your name son?''Quick; Ben Quick.'The film is a hoary old hoot. I watched this with my cousin when this first came on, we were both teenagers and only interested in this mini series because we liked Miami Vice and Moonlighting and for weeks we were reciting the bad lines in a southern drawl.Don Johnson plays the barn burner who drifts into a southern plantation town run tightly by a patriarch who is unhappy with his brood. A weaselly son, an uptight daughter and a restless, sexy one played by Cybill Sheperd. Jason Robards as the sly father who sees in Quick, a real man and in effect hires him as a stud to melt his uptight daughter.This is a teleplay with scheming, treachery, seduction and suspicion leading to melodramatics and passion, southern style. Johnson displays an easy style mixed with angst and romantic heat. Robards turns it up a notch or two to remind the audience that he is a two time Oscar winner.Yet the acting with its mish mash of southern accents does have an unintentional hilarious script as well as some dicey acting like many other 1980s mini series but yet it is all very entertaining.

I enjoyed this version as much as the 1958 version. I wish they would release the 1985 version on DVD. I though Don Johnson did a great job and I have always enjoyed Jason Robards acting. The realism of the film reminds me of the southern USA I grew up in. I remember the fears of farmers as related to barn burners and names associated with them. The director and cast did a wonderful job in my opinion with this version bringing out southern life as it really exists and family feuds. I could feel the hot, humid summer nights and almost smell the swamps and wetlands with their unique scent. Cybil Sheppard did a very nice job portraying a young southern woman questioning her marriage then realizing what she could lose.

I had always claimed, that Don Johnson was not for me. He was not even a good actor. So I was persuaded to watch this film, and I was so facinated. I could not get it out of my head after I saw it. It was brilliant, and Don Johnson played really well. The story was also good. I even wrote to our local TV station, to get them to show it again, but in vain. Please let it come out on DVD so I can buy it.

I first saw this as the mini series in 1985; I have watched it three or four times since then, most recently tonight. It is not consistently the greatest TV movie ever made, but the combination of Judith Ivey, Jason Robards and Don Johnson is wonderful. Cybill Shepherd is somewhat wasted as Eula, and the part of Jody is a pretty difficult one, but William Russ is perfect as the weaselly son of a powerful father. I enjoy this more every time I watch it, the locations, the soundtrack, the love story between Noelle Varner (Ivey) and Ben Quick (Johnson) as two strong willed people, one running from his past, the other hoping for a future. It's definitely worth a look-or two or three.