Salient. Official Newspaper of Victoria University of Wellington Students Association. Vol 41 No. 1. February 27 1978
Ways of Spending $2 — Bobby Deer Field
Ways of Spending $2
Bobby Deer Field
It you thought that Al Pacino would only take part in quality films, think again. The standard set by Bobby Deerfield in the the "Bad taste film of the year competition" is going to be hard to beat.
Bobby Deer field is a top formula one racing car champ. Every time he walks out on the track the crowd seems to go crazy (at the expense of no-name drivers like James Hunt and Mario Andretti). To save money the director has decided to use crowd scenes twice and sometimes three times over, obviously with the unobservant masses in mind.
The unobservant masses, however, will not be satisfied at all with this film; there are only one or two lengthy shots of race scenes and the only remotely exciting subplot (the mysterious malfunction which causes two of Deer field's team's cars to crash) is not developed.
The rest of the film consists of Deer-field trying to leave his exotic French lover in favour of an exotic but terminally ill, Italian lover. Good material for an interesting film? Well perhaps, but what we have here is two hours of unexciting ramble.
Al Pacino's acting is positively awful. It is as if he dislikes the film intensely, and wants to get it over with as soon as possible. Who can blame him?
The editing is atrocious and some lengthy and tedious scenes seem to have little or no relevance to the main body of the film. One wonders what the real intention of director Sidney Pollack was.
His earlier film Serpico managed to tell an important story with feeling and interest. If there was any feeling and interest in Bobby Deerfield originally, which somehow I doubt, Pollack has beaten it till it is groggy and lifeless.
If you've read this far, the general message is to spend your $2 on something more worth while. Try Star Wars — it's good for a laugh.
David Murray