This Review Reveals Minor Details About the Plot.
Cowboy Up!
Plot Overview
Freshman cutie
Annie Morgan (Candace Cameron Bure) tutors senior jock Mark Crane
(David James Elliott) in math at Univ. of Colorado until she has to
transfer out to be near family. She becomes a yet unmarried (!)
marriage & family counselor and he a widower father of two,
heading an after school program for disadvantaged youth.
Both attend a museum event in Denver hoping to tap donors for their
programs, and they bump into each other. The kids get
introduced. A roving photographer snaps a photo of this
“family” and Annie a people person mugs for the shot.
An earlier met potential sponsor Alexander (“Call me
Bish”) Bishop (Ronny Cox,) CEO of Bishop Communications, wants to
interview both at his New Mexico ranch and invites the
supposedly married couple & family for a weekend stay. Annie
persuades Mark to go along with it for now (“I just think
there's something bigger going on here.”)
Bish likes kids and he loves
surprises. Sixteen-year-old Kenny “Neanderthal” Crane
(Chris Brochu) falls for Bish's horsewoman daughter Eliza
(Deanna Douglas) and hoping to prolong their stay he sabotages his
parents' efforts to come clean about their ruse. Bish finds it
“curious” Mark's excessive modesty in not changing in
front of his “wife.” Bish's wife Sophia (Belita Moreno)
observes their married guests do not wear wedding rings. To set
their minds at ease, the rancher springs on them an old New Mexico
custom of renewal of vows. In front of witnesses he declares that
from this time forward they will find in each other their warmth
and companionship. The meaning is clear and they may consent
with a symbolic kiss. It's time to fish or cut bait. The result is,
“Now, that was a kiss!”
Novelist Peter Mountford writes that “the usage of to commute before the 1800s simply meant to change or substitute one thing for another; often it implied substituting a penalty for one less onerous” (41–2). It is evident that the couple's weekend date got commuted to life. Consulting anthropologist Marvin Harris on What is Marriage? we read:
One of the problems with the proposition that the nuclear family is the basic building block of all domestic groups is that it rests on the assumption that widely different forms of matings can be called “marriage.” Yet in order to cover the extraordinary diversity of mating behavior characteristic of the human species, the definition of marriage has to be made so broad as to be confusing. —Since the term marriage is too useful to drop altogether, a more narrow definition seems appropriate: Marriage denotes the behavior, sentiments, and rules concerned with coresident heterosexual mating and reproduction in domestic contexts.
To avoid offending people by using marriage exclusively for coresident heterosexual domestic mates, a simple expedient is available. Let such other relationships be designated as “noncoresident marriages”, “man-man marriages”, “woman-woman marriages,” or by any other appropriate specific nomenclature. It is clear that these matings have different ecological, demographic, economic, and ideological implications, so nothing is to be gained by arguing about whether they are “real” marriages. (317–18)
Mark and Annie have a
“noncoresident marriage” after the ranch episode and
being miserable apart have gone back to dating. Thirteen-year-old
Zoe Crane (Emma Gould) calls Annie “Mom.”
Ideology
This is a slowed down zany comedy dressed up as family
entertainment. A proverbial formula even telegraphs
what's about to take place: (Prov. 30:18-19) “There be three
things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not:
The way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock;
the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man
with a maid.”
“The way of an
eagle in the air.” Ex-combat pilot Bishop takes flight
panicky Mark for a ride in his helicopter where he does acrobatics
including loop-de-loops. To Bish it's a load of fun, but Mark
seriously wants to land. There is at least one inversion of plot
when the straight couple pretending to be married must share a
room. Mark sleeps on the floor making it a fun sleep-over, but some
in our family-friendly audience might have a conniption. The
couple's history in Boulder could well have brought them into
contact with the hippie contingent there who would, naturally, have
been very accommodating about sleeping arrangements.
“The way of a serpent upon a
rock” corresponds to the dinosaur exhibit at the
museum—dinosaur means giant lizard. Kenny steps
over the exhibit ropes and puts his head in T-rex's mouth as
roaring sound effects play in the background. Part of Annie's
counseling includes telling her clients to be bold in love, advice
that she might want to take, herself.
“The way of a ship in the
midst of the sea” corresponds to the corkscrew slide at
Bishop's pool. His guests ride down it in inflatable porpoises.
There's at least one major twist in the plot. Bishop's code of
honor is heavily based on telling the truth, which his guests took
a lot of liberty with, but Bish, himself, had them there under
false pretenses; he was hoping Annie the counselor could help his
troubled son and daughter-in-law's marriage.
“The way of a man with a
maid” is all over the place. Jake (Michael Sheets) &
Lucia Bishop's marriage turned a corner, Mark and Annie are not so
much happily-ever-after as Rome-wasn't-built-in-a-day, and Zoe has
her doubts whether her neanderthal brother can maintain a long
distance relationship once the weekend at the ranch is over.
In the billiards game the shooter was advised to “aim
slightly off center to get a good break.” Mark had an angle
in college not telling his cute tutor Annie that math was really
his best subject. It led to her ease at seeing him again, and the
casual picture pose, and its consequences. The break sent those
balls zinging every which way. For that matter it was memorable the
hard hit Mark gave one football player, which knocked him senseless.
Production Values
“” (TV Movie 2011) was directed by Jonathan Frakes. It was written by Wesley Bishop and Alan Marc Levy as if it were a pilot to be picked up with strings going in different directions. It stars Candace Cameron Bure, Ronny Cox and Belita Moreno. Candace was gorgeous, but so are all the co-eds at Univ. of Colorado. Cox and Moreno were strong but it's not realistic to expect them to carry it. The other actors were good in a high schoolish sort of way. The local band sucked.
It's not rated but was made for family entertainment. Movies for theater are generally edgier to give them an advantage over competing TV. I wouldn't buy a TV set to see this fare but it's worth the investment in a stand-alone DVD player I can watch other movies on, too. Runtime is 1 hour 35 minutes.
Review Conclusion w/a Christian's Recommendation
I'm a country boy who ran with the hippies and now live in the west, so this movie was right up my alley. It should also be entertaining for children though it deals with adult problems. Some of it might have to be explained to the young-uns. Somebody might have to explain it to me, economics and history, notwithstanding some of it hits close to home. At least it allows one time to think the plot through.
Movie Ratings
Action Factor: Weak action scenes. Suitability for children: Suitable for children with guidance. Special effects: Well, at least you can't see the strings. Video Occasion: Better than watching TV. Suspense: A few suspenseful moments. Overall movie rating: Three stars out of five.
Works Cited
Scripture quoted from the King James Version. Pub. 1611, rev. 1769. Software.
Harris, Marvin. CULTURE, PEOPLE, NATURE: An Introduction to General Anthropology fifth edition. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1988. Print
Mountford, Peter. The Dismal Science. Copyright © 2014 by Peter Mountford. Portland, Oregon and Brooklyn, New York: Tin House Books, First U.S. edition 2014. Print.
bibles.n7nz.org