Exoticalot People are voting emotionally.

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Kirandeep Yoder The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

fdextro ABC hyped the premiere of this pop culture mind bender as "the television event of the decade". They may have been right. Written by Hack, I mean Jack Turley, it's a heavy-handed quilt of morality clichés as we follow three advertising execs (Shatner, Reed and Gortner) willing to do anything to land a big account. They make Darrin Stephens and Larry Tate look like models of integrity. This time, they agree to go on a motorcycle road trip to Mexico with a crazy rich (or is that Ritz?) cracker played by Griffith in an image-shattering performance. He forces them to wear matching leather jackets emblazoned with a "Baja Wildcats" logo, while underneath sporting what look exactly like extra-large long-sleeved Star Trek t-shirts. With a set-up like this, how can you go wrong? Well, for one thing, trying to jam in a bunch of soap opera backstory before the big ride.Shatner, wearing one of his funniest toupees (with sideburns to match), is having a serious midlife crisis. His job is in jeopardy, he's cheating on his wife, and, worst of all, the boss tells him to get some new suits with wider lapels (this is the 70s, after all). He takes out a life insurance policy and contemplates suicide for much of the movie. In a reversal of Griffith's performance, Shatner actually underplays his role but does it so turgidly; he still comes off as a pompous ham.Then we have Reed, still decked out in a full-Brady afro. He's married to Dickinson and things aren't going so well for them either. (In fact, she's the one having an affair with Shatner.) It's impossible to watch today and not read gay subtexts into Reed's dialogue, especially when he tells Dickinson, "The man you married lived in an apartment with only one closet." Delicious.Meanwhile, Gortner plays a proto-yuppie prick, willing to sell-out and sacrifice anything and anyone for the sake of his career. He can't even give his girlfriend a committed answer when she tells him she's pregnant. Willing to abort it if he says so, Gortner can't be bothered right now with making a decision. He's got a road trip to run. The women gather together to say goodbye and the Wildcats begin their fateful odyssey. That's too bad for us watching because we now have to squirm through what seems like an hour (it isn't, though) of random motorcycle mania. Worse than the similar biker bores in THE ACID EATERS, try not to fall asleep because you'll miss some of the most incredible made-for-TV moments ever devised.The first takes place in a cantina. Griffith has been tossing back tequila boilermakers and makes a drooling play for some poor hippie girl dancing her little hips off. The expected fight breaks out and our trio now have to face the fact that Griffith may be a total psycho. Gortner gets drunk and tries not to care. However, Reed and Shatner have a real heart-to-heart talk about responsibility and whether all this is worth some advertising job. The scene ends with another classic Reed-subtext line as he asks a heavily buzzed Shatner, "I'm going' back to the hotel. You wanna tag along?" Shatner declines the invite with a warm and knowing smile.The other key scene involves Griffith's confrontation with a hippie couple swimming nude on a beach. He and Gortner ride in and the bad vibes start almost immediately. Griffith shows an interest in the girl and offers the boyfriend a hundred dollars for her, flaunting the whole hippie free love ethic. The boyfriend tells him to get lost, but Griffith loses it in a completely different way. He grabs a hatchet and starts taunting, "C'mon hippie, let's go! C'mon freak!" Instead of bodies, Griffith butchers the hippies' van, pretty much dooming them to slow death because of the distance they would have to walk to reach help. Of course, Gortner plays the quivering toady.Back in Mexico, Shatner finally shakes off his suicidal bent with the realization that he's a better man than Griffith. Referring to the head Wildcat, Shatner says, "He's like acid. He makes people do anything." Reed remains ambivalent and Gortner continues as a self-denying scumbag.I won't reveal the ending, but I'm sure most of you have a good idea who won't survive. As I said, it's a morality play, but holds little weight as such. The value of this movie relies purely on 60s/70s pop culture appreciation. It's a predictably scripted, flatly directed late-period biker film, led by three attempts at a stereotype breakout. It's also a fun failure and well worth seeking out.

quinnum I first saw this in 6th grade, a "Movie of the Week", if I remember correctly. The next day at school was abuzz with, "Can you believe it? I didn't know Andy Griffith could BE like that!"Oh, the classic lines, just from Ol' Andy: --"Come on , hippy!...I'm sort of a hippy myself-a hippy with MONEY!" --"It's just you and me, baby...we're getting' it ON!"Griffith's motorcycle performance--oh, the split-leg whooping!--gives one cause to yearn for more movies like this. Just where ARE those 1970s-vintage TV movies? Get these things on DVD before it's too late!Marjoe Gortner doesn't disappoint, either, if early-1970s pseudo-psychedelic "lingo" brings chills to your spine. His attempt at "drumming" in the Mexican bar while Andy Griffith accosts the hot hippy chick is nothing short of screaming hilarity. "The Simpsons" writers would have nothing on this movie, would that "Pray for the Wildcats" was SUPPOSED to be funny.William Shatner and Robert Reed almost steal this thing with their "understated" acting (holy cow, did I just call Shatner "understated"?!). Shatner "philosophizing" is what is "priceless" not all the crap in those credit-card commercials. The female characters, particularly those played by Angie Dickinson and Lorraine Gary, are damn near side-splitting in their "serious", but extremely stupid--even for 1974--dialogue. Their discussion about the affair Dickinson has with Shatner, and her fears about his eventual life choice, would have Oprah AND Dr. Phil p***ing their pants. It's absolutely, moronically, hilarious.I wish this movie had been more popular and remembered. What "The Simpsons", "South Park" or "King of the Hill" could have done spoofing this thing is chill-inducing (the GOOD kind) in and of itself.Bob Bates Orlando, FL

yelahttam The coolest video store in the world, Movie Madness, has a VHS copy of this film here in Portland, I rented it one night a few years ago and was stunned at the wondrously awful hilarity it contained. The sight of Andy Griffith trying to erase his good guy image by hassling a young couple in a Mexican cantina, droning on about "hippies", Marjoe Gortner and his "main man" speech, Shatner and Robert Reed, at one point, having a conversation about what to do with Griffith, which just sounds like Captain Kirk and Mike Brady having a tete-a-tete. But the capper is Angie Dickinson doing absolutely NOTHING. She's supposedly married to Robert Reed, but having an affair with Shatner, yet there's no evidence of it, at all. Such a shame. GO find this film, have some friends over and soak up the bad-ness. - mh

johdousha I agree with Teresa. This movie is a cheesy. But, on the other hand, I thought Andy Griffith did a fine job of being a bad guy for once. William Shatner, of course, played the part of William Shatner, but then, I just like him because he's Captain James T. Kirk of the starship Enterprise. Robert Reed was pretty good, too, and if you see this film, check out the interior of his house--I swear it's the same house as the one in the Brady Bunch! And sure, the film is completely dippy, and the plot's weird, and the effects are royally hand-made, but I still think this is a film worth watching, if only for the interaction between the well-known television personalities. Besides, where else do you get a chance to see William Shatner referring to someone else as "The captain?" The don't make 'em like this anymore...maybe that's a good thing. But see it anyway!