film Home > Movie Reviews

There are actors who train rigorously for years, mastering every aspect of the craft, then are as lifeless as a pound of lox when the camera goes on. Then there are actors who have zero formal training yet instinctively draw the camera's eye. That's Willie Nelson. Honeysuckle Rose, a pleasant enough tale about a philandering country musician, is enlivened not only by Nelson's utterly natural performance, but by some of the best--and worst--casting choices possible. The best is the pairing of Nelson and the wonderful Slim Pickens as bandmates and old pals. The worst is the casting of Amy Irving as Pickens' daughter, a hotshot guitarist. Irving's not even remotely believable as either a country player or a country player's kid--and her backstage dalliance with Nelson's Buck Bonham strains belief even further, especially when the wife waiting for Buck at home is played by Dyan Cannon, who was (and still is) quite spectacularly sexy. But the Irving/Nelson coupling does give Pickens the opportunity to play the enraged papa and chase Willie with a pistol, the two of them getting progressively slower until a gasping Slim flops down and snaps, "I'm too old for this shit." It's a strangely poignant moment in a movie that, among its other charms, gave the world the Nelson-penned country standard "On the Road Again."