Robert
Benton's screwball comedy stars Kim Basinger and Jeff Bridges as Nadine
and Vernon Hightower, a young couple on the verge of divorce. Nadine
enlists the help of Vernon, now engaged to another woman, for her
attempt to recover some compromising photos of herself from a sleazy
photographer, Raymond Escobar (Jerry Stiller), who's making a deal to
have her picture put on playing cards. But when they break into his
office to steal the photos, they hear a commotion in the next room and
accidentally grab the wrong envelope, which contains the proposed layout
of a new highway, a potential gold mine for real estate developers.
Shady real estate kingpin Buford Pope (Rip Torn) wants the plans back
and will stop at nothing to get them. The couple is soon on the run not
only from Buford but from cops who believe they've killed Escobar. With
all of this enforced togetherness, the couple has a chance to get
reacquainted. Basinger and Bridges have wonderful chemistry, and Torn is
hilarious in his patented sleazeball turn. Benton, best known for
deeply affecting, Academy Award-winning melodramas such as KRAMER VS.
KRAMER and PLACES IN THE HEART, approaches the material with the relaxed
glee of a hardworking graduate student on spring break, and the
resulting film is a lighthearted, thoroughly enjoyable farce.