Louis Black

The film is fun to watch, but you never emotionally buy into the story or its world, and when you leave the theatre, they're gone. There's a lot to this speedy little complex science fiction adventure but what's missing is imagination.

Previously responsible for The Hitcher, a disturbingly cold-blooded exercise but still a powerful cinematic vehicle, Harmon still doesn't show enough humanity to be considered anything more than a stylish director. But he is a damned stylish one, who keeps the film interesting and the action sequences effective. If you don't expect much (and the developer vs. land owner plot is ridiculous) you may be surprised at what's here.

But for a film like this to succeed it must be full of humanity, overflowing with characters. This one is but they are all two-dimensional: the exhibitionist manipulative performance artist girlfriend, the insensitive and driven husband. The correct moral course is always clear, ambiguities are not entertained. In all its choices the film offers no real options. This tone piled upon the overwhelming coincidences that are supposed to drive the plot, drown whatever charm the central characters manage to generate.

In its own way, sloppy and excessive with LSD camera work and cutting, Posse is like a Gene Autrey Western from the Forties where the bad guys are the bad guys and the good guys are the good guys and the girl and the boy love each other (and those films were frequently more elliptically hallucinatory than this).