I've been fond of Steven Spielberg's work for a while now, so I decided to try out his feature film directorial debut to see if I'd like it or not. This is "The Sugarland Express" from 1974.This movie is a crime drama based on a true story that happened in 1969 in Texas, where a young woman (Goldie Hawn) and her husband (William Atherton) try to get their baby boy back from foster parents. However, when things go wrong, they decide to kidnap a police officer as a hostage on the road, which then leads to a really comical amount of other police cars in the state of Texas chasing them down to try to stop them.
The movie started off a little rocky for me. At first, I found the couple kind of annoyingly unlikable. I wouldn't say it's the acting that bothered me here, as it is very well done. But it was kind of hard to stomach some of their actions, especially the early scenes where they just lose their cool at the hostage very easily. And to be fair, perhaps they acted that way in the real life story, and maybe I shouldn't even be having this criticism because one could argue that they weren't intended to be likable, but damn, it irritated the hell out of me. So I initially had trouble enjoying it.
But then, amazingly enough, as it went on, the movie gradually grew on me, and I actually started to care and sympathize with these characters to an extent if they were breaking the law, which made me really anticipate what was going to happen towards the end.
"The Sugarland Express" is pretty damn exciting as far as car chase movies go. The action is fast-paced and kept me on the edge as the many police cars were catching up on the main characters leading to some very intense scenes. I also enjoyed some of the more quieter scenes, like this one scene where the couple takes a rest in an RV in a used car lot for one night, and they watch a Looney Tunes short featuring Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote. Of course, the sound is muted, so the husband humorously attempts to impersonate all the sound effects. It's very cute.
So what started out as something rough, turned into a very good movie as I stuck with it. If this was directed in the wrong hands, this story could've had a Hollywood sort-of happy ending. Spielberg thankfully didn't do this. Without spoiling the ending away, let's just say that when the experience was over, I was slightly tearing up a little. I'm very glad I gave it a chance as it's something I'll likely won't easily forget for a long time.
I give "The Sugarland Express" (1974) directed by Steven Spielberg an 8 out of 10.
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