Bad Girls
Collectors of Drew Barrymore moments — don’t laugh, we are legion — will find a few nuggets even in this stinker of a western. Barrymore plays Lilly, a ho on the range. She runs off with three other hookers — Cody (Madeleine Stowe), Anita (Mary Stuart Masterson) and Eileen (Andie Mac-Dowell) — to fight for feminism and presumably the right to look cute in the saddle. There is a scene in which Lilly kisses Eileen in broad daylight — a real DB moment — but director Jonathan Kaplan (The Accused) ducks the lesbian theme and any other plot line that seems remotely interesting.
But why bother about the plot? The writers didn’t. It’s more fun watching DB, especially when she gets kidnapped and leered at by James Russo’s Kid Jarrett and his gang of murderin’ cutthroats. “Do you know who you’re talkin’ to?” asks the ornery Kid. “Pigs,” says Barrymore, hitting the boys with her best Valley babe smirk. Let Stowe get stuck delivering the big speeches. Whenever possible, Barrymore keeps her responses monosyllabic. Smart girl.