Why did the armadillo cross the
road? So Alan Rudolph could show that
his film Roadie begins and ends in
the state of Texas. Here’s the
layout. Young, hyper Travis Redfish
(Meatloaf) lives at his father Corpus’ (Art Carney) salvage company and makes
deliveries for Shiner Beer. Catching
sight of young Lola (Kaki Hunter), a groupie-in-training, Travis finds himself
swept up into the whirlwind lifestyle of a rock ‘n roll roadie.
One might think, at first blush,
that this film would concern itself with the idea of the call of the open
road. But this is not the case. Travis has no desire to go on tour with
musicians. He doesn’t feel the pull of
an opportunity to live life. The only
reason he becomes the world’s greatest roadie is because his mindset is
antithetical to that of those around him.
This comes from his background with his dad. Corpus and Travis are able to rig and create
all manner of contraptions to make life easier.
They have a phone booth in the house that extends itself outside if
someone wants a little privacy. Travis
makes his entrance (at home and in the film) on a makeshift crane/elevator that
carries him between floors. Corpus
surrounds himself with a multitude of televisions, all tuned to different
stations. The thing of it is that the
Redfishes are pretty much idiot savants (with the exception of sister Alice Poo
[Rhonda Bates], who is just an idiot).
To call them simple folk would be understating things. For example, none of them can pronounce
“Pomona,” though Corpus’ enunciation is the one they stick with because he’s
the smartest of them (hey, I had a friend who used to pronounce “San Jose” as
“San Joes,” so who am I to judge?). Corpus
installed homemade braces on Alice’s teeth.
The best illustration of the Texans’ shitkickerhood, however, is the
scene where Corpus, Alice, and BB (Gailard Sartain) are eating ribs and
drinking beer. Their faces are covered
in pork and barbecue sauce, and the mere idea of table manners is utterly
foreign. This tableau is a snapshot of
Travis. Roadie is basically Being
There with Deliverance’s Hoyt
Pollard as the protagonist. Or maybe
just a quasi-Forrest Gump antecedent
minus most of the sentimentality.
At the center of the film is the
mismatched relationship between Travis and Lola. These are two extremely flawed people,
neither of whose world view is all that appealing. Travis’ instant love for Lola is
amusing. He declares that, “That’s the
first woman I’ve ever known who I’ve cared for as a human being,” after seeing
her for a split second. Lola knows that
Travis is into her, and she knows how to manipulate him into getting her
way. Her goal in life is to be a
groupie, but first, she has to have sex specifically with Alice Cooper as a
sort of deflowering ritual. Lola
delights in her sexuality, but she’s naïve in its meaning and about life in
general. Much like Travis, she wears
blinders to allow for her point of view, because nothing else exists or, at the
bare minimum, is less than important.
She is thrilled to inform Travis that she’s only sixteen (the grin on
her face when she labels herself “jailbait” is a bit bizarre). She picks up a box of cocaine, thinking it’s
Tide laundry detergent, and has it maneuvered off her by a little old
lady. Her usefulness to rock ’n roll
lies in her body, not her brains, and she’s okay with that. At first.
Travis resents that Lola is eager
to give it up to anybody who plays a musical instrument. He feels protective of her, but he never bothers
to tell her this. It’s easier for him to
react to her and lash out as needed; all emotion, no thought. Lola resents that problem solving comes so
easily to Travis, and he is more desired by everyone in the music biz than she
is. She feels that she is meant to be a
Muse, but it’s Travis who inspires others.
He powers a concert with manure and solar energy. He fixes a feedback issue with potatoes. Their odd couple relationship is essential to
the film, but it loses interest due to their steadfastly willful ignorance. These two are at their best when they both
dig in their heels and defy each other, even though I wanted to smack their
heads together many, many times. The
film, of course, resolves itself in Hollywood fashion, which not only undercuts
the characters but also takes the perspective of one of them as being more
“correct” than the other, when both are myopic and rather uninformed.
Any love that a viewer may have
for Roadie relies on two things. First is their desire to spot all the cameos
(Roy Orbison, Hank Williams Jr, Peter Frampton, ad infinitum) and listen to
some music. In some ways, it’s a concert
film, though it’s hardly Woodstock,
being narratively driven as it is. The
performances are staged detours to keep the people who don’t care about the
story in their seats. Even when the
characters are not at a concert, any montage on the road is accompanied by a
song, using shorthand to portray bonding rather than actual bonding.
Second, and a far higher hurtle
to clear, is one’s tolerance for Meatloaf.
While I admire the man’s verve, he is nigh-psychotic throughout the
entire film. Meatloaf is cranked up to a
thousand, squirming his body all around, flopping his long, stringy hair
thither and yon. You may have seen Chris
Farley’s impression of Meatloaf at some time or another, but let me tell you,
Farley captured maybe one-eighth of the actual man’s bounce. The thing of it is, Meatloaf does show
glimmers of talent in front of the camera (and he would go on to prove that he
has decent acting chops). Nevertheless,
his bug-eyed performance in Roadie is
both grating and a little scary. Whether
this comes from his unfettered enthusiasm, his substance abuse issues, or a
combination of both is immaterial. It’s
all there on screen, good, bad, and ugly.
There are several moments when he looks like he legitimately wants to
eat whomever it is he is looking at (and I mean that in the cannibal sense, not
as some crack against obese people). The
film does muster up some sweetness and charm, but it also does so after
screaming in your face for almost its entire length, so it feels more like
apologetic backpedaling (right or wrong) than the end game intended from the
beginning.
MVT: There is a wild amount
of energy in the film. To the point of
exhaustion, but it’s there.
Make or Break: The throwdown
between Blondie and Snow White (a fictitious[?] band made up of little people)
is truly glorious.
Score: 6.25/10
