City Slickers

Ah the midlife crisis – there’s nothing quite like it. If my own experiences are anything to go by, then this regular occurrence seems to start around thirty and recur at least once every 5 years thereafter. Maybe that’s the reason City Slickers, a wry, feel-good comedy that explores the journey that is the life of the aging modern male, is so god-damn funny.

Mitch Robbins (Billy Crystal), Phil Berquist (Daniel Stern) and Ed Furillo (Bruno Kirby) are all nudging 40, and since their mid-thirties their yearly vacation has increasingly become one long, crazy search for their lost youth. Running with the bulls in Pamplona, naked skydiving - these guys have done it all - but still their lives seem stalled and empty. Mitch, married with two kids, spends his days sitting behind a desk and selling air - advertising time for a local New York radio station. Phil is married to a tyrannical bitch-queen that he has never loved, and works night and day managing his father-in-law’s supermarket. Ed runs his own sports store and is a career bachelor whose girlfriends are getting steadily younger as he gets older.

"Your girlfriends are getting so young, soon you'll be dating sperm."

When, for Mitch’s 39th birthday, Phil and Ed buy him two weeks driving cattle as a real-life cowboy, Mitch is hesitant – seeing it as yet another vain search for the fountain of youth. But at the urging of his wife Barbara (Patricia Wettig) he capitulates and in no time the three are leaning on a stockyard fence, deep in the dusty heart of New Mexico, watching burly men wrestle cattle. They are soon joined by the other greenhorns - a politically correct group that includes a woman, two black dentists and a pair of geeky ice cream tycoons - and after a brief period learning to ride and rope, they all set out across the plains with a herd of moo'ers and a weather-worn, tough-as-nails trail boss named Curly (Jack Palance)...

Written by Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel (Splash, Parenthood), City Slickers is a sharp and witty comedy that deftly combines screwball antics with male thirty-something angst. It shares many similarities with Crystal’s breakthrough vehicle When Harry Met Sally, and sees Crystal back at his wise-cracking best. Films like When Harry met Sally, City Slickers and indeed Parenthood generate humour from their natural and honest treatment of everyday life and human relationships; providing some genuine insight along the way.

Whereas When Harry Met Sally dealt with relationships between men and women, and Parenthood dealt with relationships within the family unit, City Slickers tackles the stickier subject of male relationships. In some ways this is a much easier comedic target, but still the results are an unforced and convincing portrayal of the human condition that pays off handsomely in both humour and genuine emotion. Sitting around the campfire the three firends come to understand their various problems and finally to overcome them; to the viewer their transformations are satisfying without being laboured. And even though he plays a parody of his earlier roles (or maybe because of it) Jack Palance as the rough yet wise Curly provides the perfect catalyst for their transformation.

A return to Billy Crystal at his best, City Slickers is a genuinely funny look at the lives of thirty-something males that will have you laughing out-loud right to the end. Milking the yuppie-cowboy culture clash for all its worth, and with many a sly nod to the Western-genre, this is a feel-good comedy fuelled with a good dose of honesty that will particularly appeal to those married fellas out there – especially those with a mid-life crisis or two under their belt.

City Slickers is presented on a dual-layer disc, with an anamorphic transfer (1.85:1) that is nothing short of stunning. The image is sharp as a tack and there is plenty of detail on display - supplied in copious proportions by the stunning scenery of New Mexico and Colorado. These outdoor locations, photographed beautifully by Academy Award winning cinematographer Dean Semler, shift from rocky plains to deeply wooded valleys and are infused with bright vivid colours. Complimented by excellent black level, these colours are perfectly rendered and, necessitated by many night-time scenes around the campfire, shadow detail is also excellent.

Neither MPEG artefacts nor film-to-video artefacts are anywhere in sight. The print used for the transfer is nice and clean, although the one or two specks do crop up from time to time (you won’t notice them first time through). There is also the tiniest amount of grain in the background of some low-light scenes (that I expect is inherent in the source material) and a little edge enhancement crops up from time to time. Although supplied on a dual-layer disc, the layer change was imperceptible on my player. All in all, despite one or two slight mentionables, this is a brilliant looking transfer and represents a fine job by Fox.

With only a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack, City Slickers is not going to win any awards for its sound. But given that the film is primarily a sharp dialogue-driven comedy, what we get is still a reasonable compliment to the film.

As you may have guessed the centre speaker gets most of the attention, with the dialogue clear and distinct from all but Jack Palance whose deep gravelly drawl is sometimes hard to catch. But the soundtrack is not all dialogue, and the soundstage really opens-up for City Slickers’ key scenes, with a rollicking western soundtrack and ambient sound aplenty. For example, during the bulls stampede down the winding streets of Pamplona, the cattle stampede across the plains of New Mexico or the scene involving a raging river, the front and rear speakers combine to create an impressive and immersive sound experience. Even during the quieter scenes a reasonable amount of ambient sound can be heard, from the sounds of a busy ranch to the crickets heard during the night out on the plains.

The subwoofer is used sparingly, chiming in every so often to add body to the score and to add to the odd sound effect – in particular during the stampede scenes. All in all nothing spectacular, but a soundtrack that certainly places City Slickers ahead of many in its genre.

You don’t have to mosey too far to find the Theatrical trailer that sports a serviceable transfer, but is sadly all on its lonesome.

If you are a fan of Billy Crystal and his trademark wise-cracking urbanite, then no doubt you’ll find much to enjoy in City Slickers. Fox’s region 4 release, whilst no Collector's Edition (the region 1 release fared no better), provides us with a great video transfer and serviceable audio tracks that certainly do justice to this fine film. Go out and grab yourself a copy.