Keith Carradine, Sally Kirkland, and Tom Waits star as three contemporary western criminals in Mexico and Montana in an offbeat comedy scripted by novelists Tom McGuane and Jim Harrison and directed by Robert Dornhelm (Echo Park); other actors include Bill Pullman, Kathleen York, and Rip Torn, and Jeff Bridges in an uncredited cameo. Despite the distinguished cast and flavorsome dialogue, the film never manages to establish a rhythm of its ownthe fatuous music is well-nigh ruinous in this respectand the choppy narrative becomes increasingly stalled and sluggish as a consequence. But Waits, Kirkland, and Carradine all have their moments, and the grotesqueries of the plot (which involve hiding emeralds in the innards of a horse called Infidel in order to sneak them over the Mexican border) and characters (such as Waits’s cantankerous notions about health, individuality, and killing) are fitfully amusing. (JR)