The Chronic Consumer

Thelma & Louise is one of my all-time favorite movies. I remember the first time I saw it as a senior in high school. I was hanging out with my best friend one day, and we decided to go rent a movie. We picked out T&L, not knowing anything about it or about all the controversy it had stirred up, even though it had been released almost a year before. We both ended up loving the film. We talked about it for weeks, imagined ourselves in the same situation, etc. etc. My friend bought the video and brought it with when we went off to college, so we watched it dozens more times after that.

However, I never owned the movie myself until just a couple of months ago when I decided to purchase the DVD as part of Fox/MGM’s “DVDs For the Cure” campaign. As I mentioned in my Legally Blonde Post, Fox and MGM special “Pink” editions of popular women-centric movies during Breast Cancer Awareness Month, with $.50 of each DVD sale going directly to the Susan G. Komen Foundation. I figured that would be a perfect way to finally get T&L on DVD, so I went ahead and bought it.

The “Pink” edition is nothing more than a special cardboard o-ring that slips over the regular DVD jewel case, so it’s not like this is a collector’s item or anything. Then the DVD itself has the same bonus features as the regular version that you can buy at any other time during the year.

The special features include an audio commentary by director Ridley Scott, an audio commentary with Susan Sarandon, Geena Davis, and screenwriter Callie Khouri, 30 minutes of “newly found” deleted scenes, and an alternate ending with more commentary from Ridley Scott.

In all honesty, the extras aren’t that great. The alternate ending turned out to be nothing more than an extended shot of the convertible flying into the Grand Canyon. We see the car tumble over several times, and then the shot cuts back to Harvey Keitel and the rest of the cops. After that, Scott goes for a reprise shot of the convertible driving along the open road as the credits start to roll. All told, it’s about 3 minutes longer than the ending that shows on the theatrical release.

The deleted scenes weren’t all that interesting — which is why they were deleted in the first place, I guess.

I watched the movie with the Sarandon, Davis, and Khouri commentary on, and thought it was decent, but not great. The three didn’t talk all that much, especially Sarandon. Davis seemed to be enthusiastic about providing commentary, but didn’t give any meaningful insight along the way. She mostly just talked about how funny the guy who played her husband was and things like that. Some of Khouri’s comments seemed like they were edited in after the fact, which was kind of weird.

(I haven’t watched with Ridley Scott’s commentary, so I can’t tell you about that part yet.)

Overall, Thelma & Louise is one of those DVDs that you buy for the film itself rather than the extras. If you can be satisfied with that, then go for it!