Promised Land (I) (1987) User Reviews

The Fate of Each One in a Great Low Budget Movie

[claudio_carvalho · 7/10 · 8 November 2004]

In the small town of Ashville, Hancock (Jason Gedrick) is the best basketball player and local hero. Mary (Tracy Pollan) is a cheerleader and his gorgeous girlfriend. They both intend to go to the college together. Their friend Danny 'The Senator' (Kiefer Sutherland) quits high school and moves alone to the Arizona, trying to have a good job and a better life. A couple of years later, Hancock is the local chief of police, living from his glorious past; Mary is studying Arts, and although still loving Hancock, she can not accept life in Ashville and has a new boyfriend; and Danny is a complete loser, who decides to get married with the crazy Beverly (Meg Ryan) and spend the Christmas Eve in his home town with his family. The story ends in a tragic way. 'Promised Land' is a depressive tale about the fate of each one and, in accordance with the initial credits, is based on a true story. The young cast has a great performance, the story is never corny, and it is great to see an American low budget movie about real common people, and not the fancy Hollywood reality. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): 'Terra Prometida' ('Promised Land')

so there truly is another side of the American way of life

[nieltje · 6/10 · 4 November 2003]

I read the summary of the movie and I saw the line "the other side of the American way of life" and I was wondering what it was. I'm Dutch, so it was a relief to see that America wasn't as perfect as it seemed. the movie wasn't really what I expected from it. but not in a negative way. I simply loved the movie. the simplicity of it. I only knew Kiefer Sutherland and Meg Ryan (Kiefer was the reason I bought it). Kiefer was great as Danny, but I was stunned by Meg as the almost trashy Bev. I almost cried at the end, but I only want to say: Watch it, as fast as you can. and don't expect anything, because you won't get what you'll expect.

Bleak small budget film about the small town folks and their sometimes small dreams and lives.

[Havan_IronOak · 7/10 · 13 January 2002]

Dave Hancock is a small town athletic star who goes away to college as a basketball player on scholarship. When he washes out of the team he drops out of college and comes home to find a job on the local Police department where he's comfortable among the folks he's always known and able to relax in his former glory.

Mary his head cheerleader girl friend goes away to school to study art but also longs for the small-town life and the boy she's left behind. She's got big dreams but is afraid to leave the comfort of the small town and afraid to tell her family she wants to stay.

Danny Rivers, tagged `the Senator' was a nobody in high school and can't wait to leave for the world outside the town he's grown up in and the bleak undemonstrative family that raised him.

When Danny meets and marries a crazy do-as-she-pleases girl he decides to return home and all of their lives are changed forever...

I found this movie to be evocative of a period and had better than average character development but this film will not appeal to all. It is a sketch of a time and a place and the people there. They are not archtypes, they are not universal but they are realistic and you can care about them and as with many sketches the viewer is left with the desire for more, a more complete picture, a better sense of what comes next and even a few more details about the present.

Tragedy is often not well received

[L-Jet · 8 September 2000]

I can't believe anyone referred to this as fluff;hate it, but no way is this fluff. It was almost creepy to me how this non-didactic near masterpiece captured a lot of what the 80's were about for most Americans by telling this seemingly simple tale of disaffected young people in some small burg in the Midwest. Of the four principles, two want to get out (only one can articulate to what, and she's hasn't convinced herself), one needs to stay because his only real defining moments were there, and the fourth is a near sociopathic drifter, who meets up with the clueless one who leave smallburg because he doesn't know what else to do. Even this character, Bev (Meg Ryan actually showing range instead of getting rich off Nora Ephron fluff she can walk thru), needs "home" in some way, and convinces clueless Danny to marry her (a great wedding scene; gives new meaning to the word "downscale") and take her to meet his folks. Former star HS athlete Hancock (Jason Gedrick), the one who couldn't leave, has become a cop and is trying to convince ex HS sweetheart Mary (Tracy Pollan) to come back and stay, and she IS conflicted, but ultimately knows she has to get away. It sounds somewhat pedestrian, but it's played to expose more than human frailty, but how we can destroy ourselves and others without ill will. It also, probably unconsciously, shows us a piece of the majority of USA that wasn't getting rich in the 80's, and in fact was struggling with diminished expectations and an increasing gap between the haves and have nots. Tom Wolfe gave us the smarmy pseudo-satire "Bonfires of the Vanities", Michael Hoffman got us a peek at what was and, to some extent, what was to be. The slowly spiralling paths of the characters in Promised Land eventually collide with tragic results. There is no salvation or redemption.-- The End Oh, you want to see Meg Ryan take another chance and come up winners, check out "Hurlyburly" and her small but memorable role in this actors' movie adapted from David Rabe's play.

It's all sad with no real clear reason why.

[ian-39125 · 6/10 · 7 March 2021]

All depression without any real transition as to the why? You just kind of have to accept that's just how it is once high school is over and feel their pain without any inkling of hope. Leave the knife and sleeping pills at home when you watch this one.

"Greenlight" would be lucky to get this film today

[ghigau · 7/10 · 1 January 2004]

A very good portrayal of life with kharma. One's choices and actions can increase the chance of bad things happening to good people. If you marry someone, even as attractive as Meg Ryan, before you even know if they are insane, beware the outcome. I sure hope Tracy Pollen decides to avoid loser boyfriends. She should hook up with someone sane, say Michael J. Fox...

Falls Short Of The Mark

[abooboo-2 · 5/10 · 23 July 2001]

When I was growing up my folks had a saying for whenever I wasn't able to finish some mouth-watering dessert that I had insisted on getting: my eyes were too big for my stomach. That's how I felt about this ambitious but under-inflated would-be epic. It very much wants to be a sort of quintessential 80's picture, a final say on the tragic consequences of so-called Reagan-era greed and consumerism, but it keeps pulling up lame. Like a novice trial lawyer it falters nearly every time it tries to make its case.

Occasionally it gets things right and briefly wanders into "A Simple Plan" or "The Last Picture Show" territory, in its double-edged depiction of small town security and frustration. There's a terrific, understated scene between Jason Gedrick and Tracy Pollan as they swim in a hot spring and lazily recall some of their glory days. Kiefer Sutherland and Meg Ryan have some nice fragile moments in the desert when these two lost souls discover the joy of actually connecting, however briefly, with another human being. There are glimmers of something substantial going on here, which is what makes the whole so disappointing.

The biggest flaw is the amount of time elapsed from Gedrick's game-winning buzzer beater that kicks the story off, to a mere TWO years later, when the 4 principles are at their big "crossroads" in life. Two years is simply not long enough. The film is making the specious argument that somehow Reagan's cold-hearted policies (he appears a couple times on television making supposedly "empty", out of touch speeches) are to blame for Gedrick dropping out of school and settling for becoming a local cop, or Sutherland hitting the road because he can't live up to his nickname ("Senator") by the ripe old age of 19! Yeah, fate and that trickle down economy are really conspiring against those two, aren't they? In order for an audience to really FEEL their desperation, they need to be older with their directions in life more set in concrete. That's why "A Simple Plan" worked so well, where here it's much harder to sympathize with the lead characters. Hell, chalk it up as a bad year or two. They all still have plenty of time to right the ship.

The acting is generally okay. I thought Meg Ryan over-did the hell-raising a bit, but at least she gives the film some real jolts of energy. Gedrick pulls a classic, 4 star nutty in a kitchen at one point that would make Mickey Rourke proud. Unfortunately the writing too often lets them down. There's such a fine line between having inarticulate characters groping for words to express themselves, and the screenwriter groping to give them something meaningful and revealing to say. In this case, it sure felt like the screenwriter was doing the most groping. There's just too many "It's not you. It's me!" and "You just ... don't understand!" type lines. Many of the arguments are forced and unconvincing.

I really liked the film's collision course structure, many of its visuals (the spinning camera around the little car in the desert casts an undeniable spell) and even its bombastic score full of "end of the world" chants and that sort of thing. It was setting me up for a conclusion that I was expecting to have so much more of an impact than it ultimately did. It didn't dig deep enough, didn't flesh out its people or their world (the town is never given a personality other than generically small and sleepy) sufficiently for me to care as much as I wanted to. But I did WANT to, and perhaps that's a small accomplishment. It's certainly better than the not entirely dissimilar "Inventing The Abbotts". But if you really want to see a more successful though equally forgotten riff on these very themes check out an early Bridget Fonda flick called "Out Of The Rain".

Those Struggling Contras

[LeonLouisRicci · 6/10 · 13 February 2014]

The Unfulfilled American Dream is at the Heartland of this Indie Drama that is a Heavy-Handed Downer. Full of Icons of American Heritage and Spiritual Significance, this is a Not Bad Movie about Good Folks who End Up Directionless in a Country where the President goes on TV and Equates the Contras to our Founding Fathers while Seemingly Oblivious to the Plight of its New Generation of Future Middle-Class Citizens and Senators.

Meg Ryan is Slightly Miscast and just can't Shake a Clean Cut Image even with Pink Hair and Tattoos. Kiefer Sutherland Underplays in Almost a Gosh, Golly, Gee kind of Innocence but Surprisingly comes off the most Believable.

The Sets are Heavily Populated with Americana and the Old Folks are Slightly Unwashed in Rumply Clothes that Again Signify that Something is Rotting in Paradise. The Ending is a "you had to see something like that coming", but Overall it is a Gutsy Attempt in the Reagan Era and Greed Decade to Shine Some Light on the Struggling Plight of Everyday Folks.

Missing Something

[dansview · 5/10 · 25 September 2014]

I do believe these characters: A cheerleader/good girl, a jock who is less of a jerk than most jocks, a totally ineffectual loser, and a trashy drifter floozy. But I still need to hear a little more in depth dialog about why they are who they are, or what they want out of life.

Other reviewers have mentioned a couple Reagan speeches in the background or some kind of political message about disappointment in the Reagan years. I see that the "lefty" Robert Redford produced this film, but I did not pick up on the whole Reagan-bashing vibe. There is one scene where the jock throws a tantrum and says, "you lied to me," but I'm not sure to whom he was talking or referring.

I was a lost soul in the 80's, but it never occurred to me to blame Reagan. My problems were entirely a combination of genes and my own decisions. The same goes for these characters.

I couldn't stand the Meg Ryan character, and I couldn't see anything to respect or like about the Sutherland character, so during their sequences, it was more like a documentary about losers. I felt no sympathy. Those two are so off-putting and ugly,they ruin the whole film.

What I did like was the gorgeous scenery and the accurate portrayal of the angst of small town youth. Growing up is scary and there's no place like home. The characters conveyed this well.

Why make it in Utah? I know that Redford lives there, but wouldn't you have to include some references to Mormonism? There was a steelmaker union sign on the main street. Were there steel mills in Utah back in the day? It was supposed to represent a generic working class small town, but nothing in Utah is generic. It's a unique place.

Tracy Pollan is five years older than Jason Gedrick and Meg Ryan is several years older than Keifer Sutherland. But I can't say that I really noticed that. I do think they were weird casting choices. A Jewish girl from Long Island as a small town Utah cheerleader? A Connecticut beauty queen type as a thief and a whore? I have faith that the jock and cheerleader will make a nice couple. She clearly has no direction in college and will find something worthwhile to do back home. He will continue as a cop. They will have a double income and produce a nice middle class life amongst their friends and family. What else is there anyways?

One thing though: Another reviewer mentioned that they should have made more than two years pass by. I agree,because two years is nothing. 20 years old is not the time to panic about your future. You can always go back to school or work for a while. Nothing at 20 needs to be forever.

The film may have made much better sense if they were all 25.

Glum, arty drama about youths in the heart of the American West

[Wuchakk · 5/10 · 27 October 2023]

Three students from the class of '85 in small town Utah go their separate ways: Hancock (Jason Gedrick) shoots for basketball stardom, but settles for being a cop; his girlfriend (Tracy Pollan) goes off to college to explore art and romantic possibilities; their meek friend Danny (Kiefer Sutherland) curiously quits school in pursuit of an ambiguous job while eventually choosing companionship with a reckless woman (Meg Ryan). When Danny returns home with his new girl it paves the way for a life-changing Christmas.

"Promised Land" (1987) was the first movie to be commissioned by the Sundance Film Festival and, as such, is a true indie, costing $3 million in 1986 and written/directed by Michael Hoffman. It's mostly an artistic coming-of-age drama and character study, yet mixed with a little road movie, crime thriller and bleak tragedy. It's similar to the contemporaneous "Less than Zero" in both content and quality meshed with the locale of the original "Footloose" from three years prior. Like "Less than Zero," it's artsy and downbeat.

While it's almost on par with "Less," it's not even close to the excellence of "Footloose" in all-around entertainment or powerful themes, although it tries. On the positive side, the four cast members are convincing with Kiefer notable as the overly docile guy (the reverse of his iconic role in "The Lost Boys" from earlier the same year). It's no wonder that he connects with Bev (Ryan) because she's the express opposite and therefore possesses what Danny lacks. Speaking of Meg, she plays against type and is surprisingly effective. This rebukes Oliver Stone's criticism that she wasn't able to capture the counterculture vibe of the wild '60's in his "The Doors" four years later. If he wasn't able to cull this out of her, it's his fault.

The character of Bev, while well-done by Meg, is a turn-off and the root-cause of what goes down. However, this is true-to-life and this story is supposedly based on a real one. We all know such foolish "free spirits" (they're actually not free, but that's another subject).

The proceedings are hampered by a vague criticism of American ideals in the dynamic '80s and the pro-gun stand of the Reagan administration. Hancock's reaction at the rural firing range at the end is both awkward and laughable. The answer to what happens is simple: Don't be a dumb fudge by threatening citizens with firearms and there isn't a problem.

The movie runs 1 hour, 42 minutes, and was shot in various areas of Utah, including Wendover and Provo, as well as Reno, Nevada.

GRADE: C.

Terrific movie - have watched over and over again many times

[rhackney · 9/10 · 21 January 2003]

No matter what the critics contend I loved this movie - I like the actors - all of them, not just the top 4. I thought the top 4 should have gotten Oscars. The film is depressing but it is supposed to be that way. The scenery and music just add to the awesomeness. References to President Regan made it more relevant. The despair and frustration of growing up in this movie are not equalled anywhere else. Two thumbs up.

Sundance indie

[SnoopyStyle · 5/10 · 26 March 2020]

Davey Hancock (Jason Gedrick) is a high school basketball star. Mary (Tracy Pollan) is his cheerleader girlfriend. Everybody knows awkward teen Danny, "the Senator" (Kiefer Sutherland) but he is mostly a friendly joke to them. He quits school, and goes on the road. Two years later, Hancock has joined the local police after his college scholarship gets taken away. He and Mary had parted but she has returned to town. Danny gets married to flighty Bev (Meg Ryan) and decides to go home. In the background, there is the spectra of Ronald Reagan.

This is most notable for being commissioned by the Sundance Film Festival. It certainly has the high value indie feel. It has some notable 80's actors. Gedrick used to be a thing. Pollan is more noted as a better half. The Gedrick Pollan pairing seems to have a small town indie drama and that feels different than the Sutherland Ryan pairing. That duo does need more setup for its conclusion. They need to be the outlaw couple. The ending comes out of nowhere. It needs to build up to that point. Overall, it has a high concept of a Reagan era living but it doesn't really hit the target.

Restlessness v. pull of small town home leads to tragedy

[L-Jet · 8 September 2000]

Two principles are anxious to get out of a small burg in the mid west and one refuses to leave the only place where he ever had any recognition (as a star high school athlete) and becomes a local cop. The wild card here is a drifter and borderline sociopath who nonetheless also needs something like "home", but has no idea what that is.

Played by Meg Ryan as you've never seen her. Although if you rent "Hurlyburly" you'll see what she can do with a well written part not seemingly made for her; this woman can act, but apparently would rather have Nora Ephron help her be a star and get fat deals playing variations on the same person. Rant aside, Ryan's character hooks up somewhere in the west with the most disaffected of the small-towners, played as a not very bright but enigmatic loser by Kiefer Sutherland. The pull of "home", both real and imagined, leads Kiefer and Meg back to small-burg with tragic consequences. There is a real 80's feel to this. Ennui and fear and neediness combine as America ostensibly does big things, a few people get really rich, and people like these characters instinctively know that most people, especially ones like them, have fewer prospects than their parents. Unlike me, the movie is not at all didactic, so check it out as one of the more outstanding "feel-bad" movies I've ever seen.

Rules and Standards under the new phase of Meg Ryan's career to 1987: Anything goes to act as sexy, marginally, thug, tough, slut .... result: She did

[eban1981 · 10/10 · 29 September 2014]

Look and styled kind Madonna 1985, evil girl, Boytoy, sexy and sometimes disguised and somewhat crooked, Punky Hairstyle of the era looking like Cyndi Lauper when Meg had her hair dyed fiery Red. Typical Girls 80s one that has fire-on-beam, naughty and malicious and extremely attractive girls is all Meg Ryan represents that movie. Temporarily letting go of their stereotypes tenderness Between November 86 to February 87 Meg took a lurch that would change the status of the new promising actress Hollywood to journey to stardom kind of ''The Presidio'' and ''Innerspace'' until their reach the year 1989 when Meg Ryan reaches the apex of fame 'When Harry Met Sally'. 'But I miss Meg Ryan this time was not as famous nor was even a Diva. But there was a more expressive sensuality, more intense personality, Meg Ryan one with more stability and balance and hot aged'25.   As that movie, she is Beverly or Bev, acts as a sweet and marginally street, cheerful pauper, bride Danny (Kiefer Sutherland) She drives by all roads north of American States and scrapped with a ancient White Plymouth, 1948 by 44 hours, smoke on the wheel slides on the snowy slopes, makes prank in a toy store, steals a baseball glove and a Rolex to give this to the Danny to a bar to drown his sorrows Danny, playing pool and playing in arcades Pinball smoking and chewing gum And the scene of the robbery she carries a .44 Magnum silver Wow! like Meg stand the jolt of shooting with one arm..maybe Meg Ryan plus actress is outspoken sniper and has a great hilt? OMG I feel horny for Meg Ryan in their acting.

That Meg's effervescence begun into late 80's into ''Promised Land'' shooted into November 1986 until Febuary 1987

PROMISED LAND..THERE'S ANOTHER EDGE SIDE BEHIND OF American DREAM!

I MISS 1987'MEG RYAN

Three fantastic performances in an otherwise mediocre movie

[jm10701 · 16 May 2014]

SPOILER (clearly marked) BELOW!

Promised Land is competently directed and well-written (the dialog is great, although the story is neither particularly interesting nor believable), but it's mainly a character-driven, actor's movie. What the characters do is uninteresting, but how they do it is fascinating.

Jason Gedrick, Kiefer Sutherland and Meg Ryan are fantastic in the leads. Most of the other actors are at least competent, although their roles are far less well-developed.

Gedrick's has-been high-school basketball star is totally convincing and amazingly complex and sympathetic, far more interesting than such people are in real life.

SPOILER HERE!!!! +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ Sutherland's sweet, nerdy, needy, clueless loser reminds me of Plato (Sal Mineo) in Rebel Without a Cause - a character so profoundly disabled emotionally that dying young is not only inevitable but a blessing. He's like a person born with no skin. +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ END OF SPOILER

Meg Ryan is fascinating as his miserable, destructive and self-destructive wife - a bad influence but not really a bad person.

These three actors (and the brilliant writer who created the roles) turn familiar stereotypes (The Washed-Up Jock, The Loser Nerd, The Crazy B!tch) into full, rich, multidimensional human beings.

But these three characters are more than human beings, because real human beings are just as simplistic and flat as the stereotypes they inspire. These are great movie characters, BETTER than real people.

That's why we watch movies instead of real people: great movie characters are lots more interesting. The three lead characters make this otherwise mediocre movie a delight to watch.

Utterly depressing picture of small town life.

[vertigo_14 · 13 April 2004]

Kiefer Sutherland had a weird choice of roles in the early 80s, and quite a few times, he played wierd characters in often depressing movies. Promised Land is one of them.

The story of Promised Land focuses on some post-high school small town residents who, although they possessed some potential for greatness, their lives never seem to be going anywhere, or at least don't go the way they anticipate. Hancock (Jason Gedrick), who was the town's glorious athlete as a high school basketball player, now spends his days at a thankless job, doing street patrol as a cop. Both he and his girlfriend, Mary (Tracy Pollen) seem to young and rambunctious (at least Gedrick does) and always wanting more than their quick introduction into suburban, Middle class life.

Hancock's friend Danny (Sutherland) is his former high school classmate, a weak and quiet guy who returns to his depressing little town with his wild (and annoying) new wife, Bev (Meg Ryan), who seems to find her husband to be a suitable massicist target. Danny, too, is reminded of better times he may've had (he's not a dumb kid, either), and fears what lies ahead as the town elicits reminders of the ambitions he had, now lost. Of course, if you know movies like this, the story will show no silver lining.

If you like this movie, perhaps you might try searching out 1969, another early Sutherland title that is something along the same lines, but obviously, it is a period drama.