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Joe Bob's Drive-In: 'Destination Vegas'

By JOE BOB BRIGGS, UPI Drive-In Movie Critic of Grapevine, Texas
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There's just something about a strawberry-blond corporate attorney in a shoulder-pad Armani suit fleeing from hit men through the Mojave Desert with a pump-action shotgun pointed at her hostage that says to me, "Hey, you've come a LONG WAY, baby."

Jennifer Sommerfield is the little cupcake-with-a-deadly-weapon who tears off through the sagebrush when her law firm sends killers to get rid of her because she knows too much about their plan to destroy all the rainforest and turn it into grazing land for the world's largest hamburger chain.

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She had to know something was up, though, because her boss is RICHARD LYNCH! Has there ever been a movie in history in which Richard Lynch wasn't a devious killer? Ever since he burned his face, he's been pretty much the personification of Infernal Sleaze.

At any rate, this fast-paced little chase flick is called "Destination Vegas," and the poster says it all: "She's young. She's an attorney. She's packing a 12-gauge shotgun."

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She's also packing one of the lamest romance subplots in B movie history. She still carries a torch for a yuppie schlub in her law firm who we all KNOW is a wuss, which makes it all the easier for her to get heated up for the kind attentions of a convicted armed robber named "Texas" she picks up in a diner by shoving her shotgun between his legs. (She wants his car, not his legs.)

In fact, she does a whole heck of a lot of shotgun-pointing. There's hardly a five-minute stretch in which she DOESN'T point the shotgun in somebody's face, quick-pump it, fire it, hoist it, or just slouch with it resting on her shoulders for that Fashion Week Gun Moll Look.

Fortunately, the four actors involved in the high-octane gunplay are such bad shots that we get thousands of rounds of gunfire and a whole heck of a lot of bobbing and weaving and bumping on the empty two-lane highway, resulting in smashed-up vehicles that miraculously continue to run.

Of course, the fact that two killer hit men are just minutes behind them doesn't stop our two romantic misfits from pulling into an auto graveyard and sexing it up on the hood of a rusted-out truck. Two sequences later, they're making that classic drive down Fremont Street in Vegas, where all the lights reflect off their cracked windshield as they seek last-minute justice and the ultimate consummation of their open-road magic-hour lust.

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Call it "L.A. Law Meets Natural Born Killers."

Eight dead bodies. Two breasts. Bottle to the noggin. Bathroom-door hand-crunching. Hubcap to the face. Face-kicking. Multiple hails of gunfire. Two carjackings. Four motor vehicle chases. One crash and burn, with fireball. Aardvarking. Junkyardvarking. Gratuitous Robert Z'Dar, star of "Maniac Cop," as . . . a maniac cop! Shotgun Fu.

Drive-In Academy Award nominations for Richard Lynch, as the corporate attorney sleaze ball, for laughing as he says "Kill her"; Jennifer Sommerfield, as the carjacking shotgun-toting junior partner, for knowing exactly how to use her legs; Stephen Polk, as the sleaze boy-in-training at the law firm, for saying, "It's my morality that makes you hot for me"; Claude Duhamel, as the scruffy ex-con along for the ride, for saying, "This may sound silly, but do you mind if I touch your legs?"; Tom Badal, the best performance in the movie, as the droll but icy hit man Daniel ("Don't call me Danny"); and Paul Wynne, the writer/director, for doing things the drive-in way.

Three stars. Joe Bob says check it out.

"Destination Vegas" Web site: silverlinepictures.com.

(To reach Joe Bob, go to joebob-briggs.com or e-mail him at [email protected]. Snail-mail: P.O. Box 2002, Dallas, Texas 75221.)

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