I am a huge fan of Jeff Bridges, so I rented this to explore his early career. Boy was I disappointed. Not that Jeff was bad. Rather, his character was simply boring. But what makes this movie so disappointing is the horrible script and the moronic character played by John Heard. Heard's character Alex was absurd and over the top. There's nothing artistic about playing a bitter drunken amputee. Why are people so impressed when an actor portrays a intoxicated lout who lacks self control? Where's the talent in shouting and stumbling and acting like a fool? Playing such a character doesn't appear to require much acting for many of Hollywood's "talent".<br /><br />But even if Heard had delivered an Oscar worthy performance, the horrid screenplay cannot prevent this film's inevitable fate in the bottom of the garbage can. It is linear and plods along as if the writer didn't know what to do next, I fell asleep about 3/4 of the way through the movie and had to finish watching "the riveting climax" the next day. This "riveting climax" (the horse scene) is so ridiculous that I'm laughing as I think about it now. The screenplay appeared to have been written by someone with no creativity, no clarity, no logic. After viewing this crap from start to finish, I can understand why it was so quickly forgotten. The only thing more pathetic than this movie are all those people who wrote such raving reviews about it. Yet, ironically, these wannabe movie critics are very nearly at the top of the movie critic profession... raving about movies no one wants to see. <br /><br />Despite this misstep, Jeff Bridges is still one of my favorites.