Kansas

An uneven blend of crime thriller and rural romance, this aims for an adult complexity but misses the target by a mile. En route from LA to New York, directionless middle class kid McCarthy meets the slightly older Dillon, an insistently friendly drifter returning to his Kansas home town, and unwittingly gets caught up in an armed bank robbery. Forced to split up as they make a run for it, Dillon draws the heat and McCarthy hides the dough under a bridge. While McCarthy finds refuge on a ranch, and falls for the wealthy owner's daughter, Dillon goes on a crime spree, makes the wanted list, and subsequently turns up to demand his share of the loot...Though more morally ambivalent than the Depression era scripts it echoes, Stevens' film never follows through. McCarthy's character is distinctly unsympathetic - disloyal, opportunist, and shallow - but as Dillon becomes increasingly unhinged, the blame is clearly shifted in his direction. Like the eponymous state, this has corn for as far as the eye can see.