Some movies are quirky and charming, some are bizarre but endearing, and then some simply try to hard to have quirky charm and wind up being forced and annoying.
"Cold Feet" falls into the latter category as Keith Carradine, Sally Kirkland and Tom Waits do their eccentric best to win our hearts as fun-loving thieves, one of them a murderer to boot.
The film is nominally narrated by Bill Pullman, as Carradine's brother, a Montana rancher who gets a letter from Carradine saying he's on his way to visit with a prize horse in tow.
After this brief introduction we see Carradine, Kirkland and Waits in Mexico, watching the horse undergo some minor surgery by a shady vet. The vet implants a tube with stolen emeralds inside the horse and Waits promptly and coldly kills the good doctor. Carradine is appropriately shocked, but not so shocked that he can't pull a double-cross. He takes the horse and hits the road, heading for his brother's Montana ranch. And, naturally, Kirkland, who wants to marry Carradine, and Waits, who wants revenge, head after him.
Part road-movie, part heist caper, part mistaken-identity farce and all forced and unbelievable, "Cold Feet" needs some comic energy, as opposed to manic energy. The screenplay, co-written by Tom McGuane, whose "Rancho Deluxe" is a cult favorite (and which gets a plug on a Montana theater marquee), has potential, but the clodhopper direction of Robert Dornhelm makes these characters reprehensible rather than lovable, and that damages the film beyond repair very early on.
A good example of Dornhelm's ham-fisted direction is a cameo appearance by Jeff Bridges (who starred in "Rancho Deluxe") as a bartender in Montana. The scene goes on too long, the action it represents never seems real and Bridges seems much too smug, as if to say, "Hey, folks, look at the cameo I'm doing in this movie."
The lead performances are also oddities. Carradine is low-key and laid back as the crook who wants to cash in his emeralds and retire, Kirkland is hyper and over-the-top in her heels and tight neon dresses and Waits is alternately cool and wild-eyed. Individually they occasionally brighten the landscape, but they just don't click as an ensemble. On the other hand, Pullman and Kathleen York as his wife are very down-to-earth and real, and Rip Torn as the slightly unethical sheriff is funny and witty.
It makes for a very mixed bag, but from this corner the film had neither enough laughs nor enough charm to pass for watchable eccentric comedy.
"Cold Feet" is rated R for violence, profanity, sex and nudity.