Impulse

Smalltown USA. After a minor earth tremor, a farmer's wife tries to blow her brains out in the middle of an irrationally abusive phone call to her daughter. Armed with her doctor boyfriend, the girl returns home to see what drove momma mad, and finds people acting totally on impulse: elderly folk rob banks, barroom brawlers break their own fingers, and mischievous brats attempt to roast her alive. All too reminiscent, most notably of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the film wastes its predictable but promising premise and quickly degenerates into virtual absurdity. With the exception of its heroine (Tilly), the entire cast is transformed into an almost comic collection of screaming harridans and snarling gunmen, while the 'hints' at what lies behind the epidemic of aggression are delivered with sledgehammer subtlety. Aiming for a realistic ecological allegory, Baker simply stumbles from cliché to cliché.