The Thing Called Love

Four young hopefuls come to Nashville to try to make it as Country & Western writers and singers. The two guys fall in love with the same girl, Samantha Mathis. I could have enjoyed this more if the music was better. I don’t have anything against C&W, or at least not all of it, but the stuff I like is much different from what we hear here. This movie is notable chiefly because it was the last one River Phoenix finished before he threw his life and talent away, convulsing on the sidewalk outside the Viper Room on the Sunset Strip from a cocktail of heroin and cocaine. It was directed by Peter Bogdanovich, a man who was a real firecracker in the ‘70s, but then just seemed to lose it. He hasn’t made a noteworthy movie since Mask in 1985.