I once came so close to meeting Kris Kristofferson that I was literally in the man's driveway. It was the late 70's and a buddy of mine at Hollywood High School, he played sax and I still know him. He and his family knew both Kris and Charlie Bronson and my friend and I were out in Malibu on a Friday night. My friend turned to me and said, "look, I'm not going to promise anything, but we're real close to Kris' house and let's stop by and maybe I can get you in. I had a lot of celebrity actor's kids as friends so I'd been thru this scenario before, no sweat.
Unfortunately, after sitting in the car for an hour, my friend reemerged and said there was too much going on in the house and it wasn't a good time ;-(. Lol, luck of the draw but I always remember that moment, sitting in that driveway, when I see him onscreen.
Now, this same saxophone playing buddy of mine once said to me that Kris was a great guy but "couldn't act his way out of a paper bag." I remember saying he deserved more credit than that though I agreed Kristofferson wasn't likely to be winning a Best Actor nomination real soon. (Funny enough, he did garner a Golden Globe for A Star Is Born, a movie listed on a lot of "worst film ever made" lists.)
I say all this because I was shocked and surprised seeing his first outing here in Cisco Pike. He's quite good, looks like he's had the chops from the beginning. He plays a songwriter here, he's bribed by his probation officer (an early Gene Hackman) to sell a bunch of dope from the evidence room and make a certain amount by Monday morning. That's basically the plot in a nutshell, there are some cool support performances, in particular, a stunningly gorgeous Karen Black and good ole Harry Dean Stanton. If you watch closely you'll see a couple of cool shots of Kris and Harry actually onstage together during a montage.
And best of all, one of those "real" 70's movies we talked about recently. This would make a great double feature with Daryl Duke's Payday.
Cisko Pike currently streams on Tubi, Roku & your Amazon Prime subscription. Thumbs way up.
3.75 stars/5
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