Fandango
"Missing in Action" Flick of the Week: In the hot-and-cold world of Kevin Costner's movie career, 1999 was a chilly one if the box office for For Love of the Game was anything to go by (his refusal to promote the film due to post-production disputes with Universal didn't helped matters either). But after all is said and done, we're still Costner fans, if not fans of all of his films, and for every crap flick he's made (e.g., The Postman), there seems to be two good ones (Dances With Wolves, Bull Durham). The sun probably hasn't set on this boy yet, but one of our favorite Costner flicks is still MIA on DVD — 1985's Fandango, written and directed by Kevin Reynolds, who would later collaborate with (and get fired by) Costner on both Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and Waterworld. Those movies were disappointments, but Fandango is something very different, a magnificent character-driven film that indicated both Reynolds and Costner were bound to do great things — those bloated budgets and epic-length shoots were still far in the future. Costner stars as Gardner Barnes, a Texas college student in 1972 who gets drafted at graduation along with his buddies Phil (Judd Nelson) and Ken (Sam Robards). Considering that they may be doomed to an early death in the jungles of 'Nam, the trio, along with two other frat brothers, hop into Phil's sedan and speed across the Texas desert towards the border, where they intend to dig up somebody (or something) named "Dom." It is their final chance to exploit the "privileges of youth," and as road movies go, Fandango is one of the better ones, casting linear plot aside and building characters through many short episodes — a fireworks fight in a cemetery; a dare to skydive from a plane flown by a stoned idiot; an impromptu visit to the abandoned film set of Giant, where James Dean once walked the earth. Costner's youthful, cocky performance as the irresponsible Gardner forms the centerpiece of the film, and Reynolds takes advantage of his script to create some marvelous set-pieces (that final, lantern-lit fandango is one of our favorite movie moments of all time). Film buffs can also keep their eyes open for Suzy Amis as the girl whom both Gardner and Ken love — she also made an appearance in Titanic as Rose's current-day granddaughter.
The good news about Fandango as a possible DVD release? It's a Warner film, and they haven't been holding much back with their DVD titles. The bad news? It's also an Amblin production. That's right, this is one of those "Spielberg Factor" films (impressed by Reynolds' student film Proof, on which Fandango is based, The Man served as an uncredited executive producer). It's possible that Warner could street a DVD on their own, but we doubt it. If you ask us, we'll see a Fandango disc when Steven Spielberg decides we will — and with everybody clamoring for Spielberg's best-known films on DVD, that could be a long time from now.