From the director of Alien, Blade Runner, Legend, Gladiator, Black Hawk Down, The Martian, The Last Duel, and Napoleon comes something very different. Thelma & Louise is the ultimate ride-or-die buddy road trip movie. Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon portray Thelma and Louise, respectively – two women in Arkansas who are getting tired of the banality of their daily lives. Ridley Scott originally intended only to produce the film, but was convinced to also direct by Michelle Pfeiffer. Callie Khouri won awards and great praise for her whip-smart first screenplay.

Thelma is a housewife, married to the controlling Darryl. Louise is a waitress in a diner who dates a musician named Jimmy, off and on. Thelma leaves a note for Darryl letting him know that she is going with Louise to a weekend getaway at a cabin in the mountains. They stop at a roadside bar and Thelma dances with a stranger. That stranger takes her out to the parking lot and attempts to rape her, but Louise intervenes with a gun. Thelma and Louise get the heck outta Dodge. At the motel they stay the night at, they discuss their options. Since the rape ended up not happening, Louise figures they’ll be charged with murder, and so they decide to escape to Mexico, though Louise refuses to travel through Texas to get there. Louise contacts Jimmy, asking him to wire her life savings to her, but he appears in person. Thelma meets and takes a liking to a young drifter named J.D., who is actually a convicted robber who is breaking his parole. Overnight, he sneaks off with Louise’s life savings. Thelma takes it on herself to get them some money, so she robs a convenience store using non-violent techniques that J.D. taught her.A

rkansas State Investigator, Hal, leads the investigation with the FBI and is sympathetic to Thelma and Louise’s situation. In several phone conversations with Louise, Hal attempts to make it clear that he’s genuine in his desire to help them and encourages them to give up and let the law do its work, but is unsuccessful. Thelma and Louise continue on their way, and in New Mexico, they are pulled over for speeding. Thelma holds the state trooper at gunpoint and gets him to get in his trunk. Later, they get a skeevy truck driver who has been making obscene gestures at them along the road to pull over, and they shoot his fuel tank, making the truck explode. Finally, Thelma and Louise are caught between the FBI and the Grand Canyon and…well, if you’ve seen the movie, you know what happens. If you haven’t, you should watch it.

Thelma & Louise toes the line of comedy and drama better than most films, and even though the plot is undeniably feminist in nature, it isn’t aggressive in the presentation of the message – something most modern films can’t, or otherwise refuse to, do. It puts the story first, instead of working a story around a message, and it’s so much better for it. Thelma and Louise are realized characters, three-dimensional, and fun to watch. They’re women you’d want to hang out with, so it’s so easy to sympathize with them from the outset. The way the film plays with the road trip subgenre is just a fun bonus.

Bonus Review: 9 to 5

Even if you haven’t seen the movie, I’m sure you’ve heard the Dolly Parton song. But if you haven’t seen 9 to 5, you should. It’s a charming, hilarious movie that’s a throwback to a lot of screwball comedies from the 1930s and 1940s. The tag team of Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton (in her first film role) play off each other so well, and has led beyond the movie to a lifelong friendship between the three.

Violet is a widow working at Consolidated Companies. She actually trained her boss, company vice president, Mr. Hart. Judy is a recently divorced woman who is now forced to work after her husband left her for his secretary. She is put under Violet for training. Doralee is Hart’s secretary, married, but Hart has spread a rumor that they are having an affair. The three women end up hanging out, griping about Hart and discussing how they would get revenge on him if given the opportunity. Violet mentions poisoning Hart’s coffee. The next day, Violet accidentally puts rat poison in Hart’s coffee, and only discovers it when Hart falls out of his chair, hits his head, and blacks out, thinking the rat poison is the cause. After several misunderstandings, the three women believe Hart is dead from poisoning and so Violet steals the dead body to avoid there being an autopsy. Later, they discover the body is not Hart and quietly return it to the hospital.

When Hart shows up to work the next day, the women are shocked. Doralee discovers the truth from all the misunderstandings and explains it to Violet and Judy in the bathroom. Hart’s assistant, Roz, hears the entire conversation and reports back to Hart. Hart gives Doralee an ultimatum: sleep with him or he’ll report the three of them for attempted murder. Doralee refuses and ends up hogtying him to his chair and stuffing a scarf in his mouth. The three women also discover that Hart has been selling the company’s inventory and pocketing the profits. However, the invoices that will prove his crimes won’t arrive for 4-6 weeks, so the women take Hart to his home and keeps him confined in his bedroom until they come in. While Hart is unavailable, the women implement favorable programs in the office including flexible hours, in-house daycare, job sharing and equal pay for men and women. Hart’s wife returns home from a trip and frees him, giving him the time to purchase back the inventory he sold. He’s about to report the women to the police when there’s a surprise visit from Consolidated’s chairman. He praises Hart for the programs at the office that has led to significant increase in productivity and offers Hart to join him in Brazil for a multi-year project, which Hart basically cannot refuse. At the end, it is revealed that he was kidnapped by Amazons and never heard from again.