 | |
| | Salesrank:
|
|
|
|
MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
|
Editorial Review:
When a carnival comes to a small town, eighteen-year-old Donna (Jodie Foster) meets Frankie and Patch, two carnival hustlers (Gary Busey and Robbie Robertson). They earn their living by mercilessly taunting spectators to try to dump one of them into the water by throwing balls. Donna is tired of her work as a waitress and follows them through the South.
Description of Carny:
Part coming-of-age chronicle, part road movie, Carny is memorable for Jodie Foster's sexy, intelligent heroine and the pivotal influence of costar, cowriter, and producer Robbie Robertson. As principal songwriter and guitarist in The Band, Robertson had already been accorded the stature of rock auteur by some critics; when director Martin Scorsese captured the musician's laconic sex appeal and deep, mesmerizing speaking voice on celluloid for The Last Waltz, the seed was planted for the Canadian rocker to graduate from documentary to dramatic feature.
The lurid, colorful carnival milieu also dovetails with Robertson's Band legacy as songwriter, and his penchant for crafting picaresque story lines with a vivid sense of place. Robertson is Patch, a carny veteran whose de facto partner is the leering, cruel Frankie (Gary Busey), an abusive clown, and the film lingers on the tawdry and menacing world behind the carny's garish public spaces. When the young, self-confident Donna (Foster) shows up and joins the troupe, the bonds between Patch and Frankie are strained. Donna's walk on the wild side brings her in intimate, sometimes dangerous proximity to the freaks and lowlifes that populate this world, which the writers and director Robert Kaylor savor for its atmosphere of outsider surrealism.
Foster acquits herself wonderfully, making this a revealing step between the prematurely hardened nymphet of Taxi Driver and the actress's first truly adult roles, soon to follow. Busey and Robertson fare less well, their work long on mannerism but ultimately cryptic to a fault. Like the movie itself, they transmit a cynicism that seems hollow without more real insight into how they came to inhabit this netherworld, and why they can't escape it. --Sam Sutherland
Carny Reviews:
Carny, a ride to remember 
2008-09-04 - Gary Busey and Robbie Robertson hit the nail square on the head in their performance of Carny. Toss in Jodie Foster and you have a real tilt-a-whirl of a ride through the scenes in this movie. I rated it 4 stars and would give it 5 if it was on DVD. I worked several years in a stick joint pulling in quarters with one of the smaller shows. There is a lot of facts based on the carnival life and I was glad to have played a part. You don't see much of the mobster type which was big business several years ago. What you do get is a peek into a life that everyone would like a taste of. This movie is very real for the times it was defining. I've met the real person that the Bozo who Gary played after and he was a total riot. Gary Busey plays him to perfection. You always have to have a straight man and Robbie has that nailed too. Toss in sexy Jody and heads will turn from all directions. It would be hard to not fall in love with her performance as Baby Madona. After things get rough and friendships fall to the wayside, things get " Patched " up when the mob tries to make things bad for our hero's. There are lots of Very Special People in the movie to give it a bit of reality. Me, I'm just hoping for a DVD release soon.
Something Wicked This Way Comes
2006-09-22 - and it is Carny...The nudity and profanity were bad. The people representing the South really put her down and was not fair or accurate. To see our beloved Battle Flag on some low life's truck made matters worse. Southern people are polite, God-fearing, home loving people and should be represented as such. I think everyone in that movie was disabled either mentally or physically. Gary Bussey was the best. Jodie Foster was too preppy for a waitress/carny worker. Robby Robinson was too attractive to play a con man and mumbled his words. The Freaks were the real stars and seem to show high character and were more interesting to watch than the others.
A world that is gone forever.....I think 
2006-09-10 - I was born the same year as Jodie Foster. I remember seeing her in various commercials, TV shows and movies as I was growing up. She was the unofficial poster child for single parent families and independent, if somewhat dysfunctional children. This film was made just as the 70's were ending and the 80's were starting. I remember these days, the Carnival, what it was like. One could learn a lot on the midway. That when things look too good to be true they were, like the shiny switchblade knife that one could win, "aren't they illegal" I asked, "illegal is a sick bird". I will never know if the knife worked, one could not win it, it was fixed. Freak shows and hoochy coochy dancers, people trying to make a living, or people being exploited? Who could say? Those who knew best decided to clean up the midway, but can anyone tell me if there is less exploitation, cheating, and dirty dealing without the midway? I lost some money but I got an education that saved me more money in the long run, that's gone now and the world is worse for it. By far and away the star of the show is the 17-year young Jodie Foster, the little girl who was in the Disney films had come of age, oh how she came of age! Her dancehall outfit is a classic that will never be repeated, as was the girl/women inside it just like the rest of us, she was growing up. The film is well paced, perfectly cast (they simply took a real carnival and shot there), and all too believable, you don't need to make up characters like Donna, Bozo, Gary Busey in his best role ever and Robbie Robinson as the low level manager who collects money and keeps "rubes" in line with his trusty straight razor, there was a kind of justice there that one does not see anywhere else, another world where different rules apply. A place for the disenfranchised, the ugly and the beautiful, in one unforgettable scene, the "fat Lady" stands alone in the rain, relishing her chance to take an all over shower. Such simple images say so much. Like all classics, it becomes more poignant with age. Of all of Busy's and Fosters films, none were better or more telling then this, and of all the Characters Jodie Foster has played before or since, none is more important, none is better. It's a shame that other of Ms. Fosters films that don't come close to this, Svengali, Blood of Others, etc have been made into DVD, but this gem sits and waits, perhaps it is an irony that the prize we see behind the counter is the one we cannot win.
Atmospheric trip through the fair.
2006-08-16 - This is a highly atmospheric trip through Carnival life. I wish that the relationship between Frankie and Patch had been fleshed out more to show how they entered their peculiar double-act, but a fascinating double-act it is. Robbie Robertson isn't so much an actor, more he is a tantalising presence - broodingly sexual in contrast with Busey's lecherous attitude. Jodie Foster gave a surprisingly mature performance. I've never seen Taxi Driver, so for me the effect of seeing Donna's Baptism by Fire into Carny life was chilling and powerful. This VHS is let down by the muddy audio - the DVD issue can't come soon enough! But overall, this movie is watchable. It's heartening that Robbie Robertson brought some real knowledge of Carny life from his teens. It's hard not to swoon at him though! Good film.
a delightfully quirky trip off the beaten path
2006-07-03 - As of July 2006, Carny is not yet available on DVD, but get it when it appears. Foster, Robertson and Busey are fascinating in this little-known gem. And the music includes some incredible stuff. (Some numbers have been cut on commercial tv airings, which is a shame. Pray that the eventual DVD release is complete.)
