MOJAVE MOON

(director: Kevin Dowling; screenwriter: Leonard Glasser; cinematographer: James Glennon; editor: Susan R. Crutcher; music: Johnny Caruso; cast: Danny Aiello (Al), Angelina Jolie (Ellie), Anne Archer (Julie), Jack Noseworthy (Kaiser), Alfred Molina (Sal), Michael Biehn (Boyd); Runtime: 95; MPAA Rating: R; producer: Matt Salinger; Trimark (Initial Entertainment Group); 1996)

“A fine cast gives it the pep it needs.”

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

Inspired by Jonathan Demme’s Something Wild (!986). Director Kevin Dowling’s (“Silk Hope”/”Last Rites”/”The Sum of Us”) wacky indie screwball comedy just doesn’t make much sense and the directing is inadequate. It’s written by Leonard Glass.

Danny Aiello is a divorced middle-aged lovelorn car salesman from LA. He drives the much younger Angelina Jolie home in the Mojave Desert after meeting her in a diner. At her home, Danny learns Angelina has a boyfriend (Jack Noseworthy). Danny then turns his attention to her attractive free-spirited mom Anne Archer. But she has an intimidating paranoid live-in boyfriend (Michael Biehn). How Danny gets together with Anne, despite the boyfriend, involves a crazy story that is hard to believe but has its insanely funny moments.

A fine cast gives it the pep it needs.

REVIEWED ON 5/27/2015 GRADE: B-