Always (1989)

IMDb plot summary: A romantic adventure about a legendary pilot's passion for dare-devil firefighting and his girl.
Directed by Steven Spielberg. Starring Richard Dreyfuss, Holly Hunter, Brad Johnson, and John Goodman.

When the credits rolled and I saw this was directed by Spielberg, I may have actually yelped out loud, "What were you DOING with this?" It's an amateurish script where none of the interactions ring true. Richard Dreyfuss and Holly Hunter try to save it by imbuing their characters with excessive playfulness, but it just makes it all the more jarring when they abruptly turn serious. Several dramatic themes are explored and then dropped with no warning, leaving me constantly asking, "But what about...what happened to...why isn't he...?"

It's not all bad. The firefighting scenes are spectacularly done and are easily the highlight of the film. The script doesn't do an adequate job of almost anything else, but it does give us a good quick overview of the technical aspects of these characters' jobs, and the action sequences help to highlight that. It's not very often that I think a movie should have been more action and less drama, but that does happen to be the case here.

1 star.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Always < My Best Friend's Wedding
Always < The Professional
Always > Out of the Past
Always > Never Been Kissed
Always < Mulan
Always > I Accuse My Parents
Always < Saw
Always < How to Marry a Millionaire (why is that so low on my chart?)
Always < Silverado
Always < 27 Dresses
Always < The Verdict

Final spot: #2007 out of 2527.