1980: "Urban Cowboy"

                                     Urban Cowboy is an 1980 drama starring John Travolta as a young rural Texan who moves to the city to find work at an oil refinery. He hangs out at Gilley's, an iconic Texas nightclub, where he meets Sissy (played by Debra Winger) and starts a rocky on-off relationship with her and a tense rivalry with a macho convict bull rider (played by Scott Glenn) .

                                   Urban Cowboy is mildly entertaining in a shallow way, but not a terribly good movie. It has the slick 80's sheen to it: it's got some mechanical bull-riding, it's got some toe-tapping country music, it's got plenty of dancing (you can't have Travolta in your movie and not have him dance; I think that's what Gotti was missing), it's got good acting (Winger especially). I guess if you want a early-80's romp, I'm sure it'll be fine. Some have called it the honky-tonk Saturday Night Fever. I'd go so far to say it's the honky-tonk Raging Bull, though not half as good.
                                   The first half of the movie is slightly more interesting than the second half, mainly because it deals with some pretty heavy subjects, like domestic abuse and toxic masculinity (kind of a buzzword but I'll use it). There's even a bit of subtext of repressed sexuality with Travolta and the sexualization of the gyrating mechanical bull. You definitely get the underlying sense that it's trying to be some sort of social critique of dysfunctional blue-collar lives, but it never owns up to these problematic elements. There's a point in the middle of the movie where Travolta and Winger go their separate ways. And it seems like that's the way it should be. The relationship gets too toxic and they simply weren't meant for each other. They got married too hastily and they move on. Travolta seems like he's matured when he's with his new girlfriend (played by Madolyn Smith) and Winger seems somewhat content with the convict. But because the script is manipulative and lacking in depth, Glenn ends up just being an abusive asshole and Travolta's girlfriend is just a uncaring shrew, hence a easy way for Travolta and Winger to end up back together. The movie ends up justifying Travolta's pushy masculinity by winning the girl back from the evil convict, just like an old-fashioned Western.
                                   The movie is forty minutes too long (it's 132 minutes), which mostly involve waiting for a predictable inevitability (Travolta getting back together with Winger), but first, we have to sit through the death of an uncle, a rodeo showdown, and a contrived robbery to get there. It would be like taking a plane, a train, two buses, and three cabs just so you can get to a liquor store that only sells diluted whiskey. The rodeo contest sequences lack any real tension and are not satisfying or fulfilling. It got really irritating when it kept cutting to shots of Travolta and Debra Winger giving each other longing, furtive glances, like it's teasing the impatient audience looking at their watches.

                                 As critical as I am of this film, I somewhat enjoyed it in a mindless, toe-tapping sort of way. But as a drama, it's disappointing.