Stu Kline

+11 clout

Sep 28, 2026

Look I'll be honest, I fired up City Slickers the other night after a doubleheader and it still lands better than most of the slick stuff they push now. Three city guys in their forties decide a cattle drive is the cure for midlife blahs. Billy Crystal plays Mitch, the radio ad salesman who stares at the ceiling at three a.m. wondering when everything got flat. Daniel Stern is Phil, stuck in a dead marriage and a job he hates. Bruno Kirby is Ed, the loud one who thinks he's got it figured out until he doesn't. They show up in New Mexico looking like they just walked out of a mall and Jack Palance's Curly takes one look and decides to turn them into something useful or bury them trying. I sat through the whole thing straight, no pause, and the first thing that hit me was how little it cares about looking cool. These guys fall off horses, get snot-covered by calves, and argue about whether the beans are supposed to taste like that. Crystal does that rapid-fire nervous talk he does, but it never turns into stand-up. Kirby keeps poking at him. Stern just looks miserable in the best way. Palance barely moves his face and somehow steals every scene he's in. You believe he'd shoot you for complaining about the coffee. Three things stuck with me this time around. One, the calf birth. Messy, loud, and suddenly Mitch is bottle-feeding the little guy like it's the most important job he ever had. No speech about it, just the work. Two, Curly riding up that ridge and giving Mitch the "one thing" talk. It's short, it's blunt, and it doesn't need a montage afterward. Three, the river crossing and the stampede. Real dirt under the jokes. You feel the weight of the herd and the fact these three could actually die out there if they keep acting like tourists. It reminds me of those old Hope and Crosby road pictures my dad used to leave on, only with more manure and fewer songs. Same fish-out-of-water setup, same easy back-and-forth between the leads, same sense that the landscape itself is going to straighten you out whether you like it or not. Only here the landscape is Colorado hills and a trail boss who looks carved out of the same rock. You could also stack it next to something like The Odd Couple if Oscar and Felix had to move a thousand head of cattle instead of argue about the vacuum cleaner. Same rhythm of guys who know each other too well, same way the plot just gives them room to bang into each other until something honest falls out. The supporting bits work without getting cute. Patricia Wettig back home as the wife who still likes the guy even when he's lost. Helen Slater and the other women on the drive who don't exist just to fix the men. Little Jake Gyllenhaal shows up early as Mitch's kid and already has that quiet stare. Noble Willingham as the ranch owner who sold them the dream vacation and then hands them over to Curly like he's unloading bad stock. Nobody's doing a bit. They're just people stuck in the same dumb idea together. Some of the city jokes show their age—fax machines and power ties—but the core still holds. Mitch keeps checking out of his own life until the drive forces him to stay present. Phil finally says the quiet parts about his marriage out loud. Ed learns that being the tough guy in a bar doesn't mean much when a steer decides to go left. Curly's death lands because the movie didn't spend the first hour turning him into a soft mentor. He stays hard right up to the end, and that makes the lesson stick harder. Pacing dips a little in the middle when they're just riding and complaining, but then the stampede kicks in and you're back. The ending doesn't tie everything in a bow. They get the herd home, they get a little clearer on what matters, and they go back to their lives a little less stupid. That's enough. No big transformation montage. Just three guys who spent two weeks smelling like cows and deciding maybe the one thing isn't a new car or a younger wife. I give it a solid four. Not perfect, not trying to be. It's a comedy that remembers jokes work better when the people telling them might actually get trampled. Palance earned that Oscar the old way—by showing up and not blinking. Crystal carries the worry without turning it into a monologue. The other two keep the triangle from collapsing into one man's midlife speech. If you want a movie that lets men be tired and scared and still useful, this one does the job. I watched it, laughed, felt that little ache when Curly rides off, and turned it off feeling like I got my money's worth. That's rarer than it should be.

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Stu Kline
+11 clout
Sep 28, 2026
Look I'll be honest, I fired up City Slickers the other night after a doubleheader and it still lands better than most of the slick stuff they push now. Three city guys in their forties decide a cattle drive is the cure for midlife blahs. Billy Crystal plays Mitch, the radio ad salesman who stares at the ceiling at three a.m. wondering when everything got flat. Daniel Stern is Phil, stuck in a dead marriage and a job he hates. Bruno Kirby is Ed, the loud one who thinks he's got it figured out until he doesn't. They show up in New Mexico looking like they just walked out of a mall and Jack Palance's Curly takes one look and decides to turn them into something useful or bury them trying. I sat through the whole thing straight, no pause, and the first thing that hit me was how little it cares about looking cool. These guys fall off horses, get snot-covered by calves, and argue about whether the beans are supposed to taste like that. Crystal does that rapid-fire nervous talk he does, but it never turns into stand-up. Kirby keeps poking at him. Stern just looks miserable in the best way. Palance barely moves his face and somehow steals every scene he's in. You believe he'd shoot you for complaining about the coffee. Three things stuck with me this time around. One, the calf birth. Messy, loud, and suddenly Mitch is bottle-feeding the little guy like it's the most important job he ever had. No speech about it, just the work. Two, Curly riding up that ridge and giving Mitch the "one thing" talk. It's short, it's blunt, and it doesn't need a montage afterward. Three, the river crossing and the stampede. Real dirt under the jokes. You feel the weight of the herd and the fact these three could actually die out there if they keep acting like tourists. It reminds me of those old Hope and Crosby road pictures my dad used to leave on, only with more manure and fewer songs. Same fish-out-of-water setup, same easy back-and-forth between the leads, same sense that the landscape itself is going to straighten you out whether you like it or not. Only here the landscape is Colorado hills and a trail boss who looks carved out of the same rock. You could also stack it next to something like The Odd Couple if Oscar and Felix had to move a thousand head of cattle instead of argue about the vacuum cleaner. Same rhythm of guys who know each other too well, same way the plot just gives them room to bang into each other until something honest falls out. The supporting bits work without getting cute. Patricia Wettig back home as the wife who still likes the guy even when he's lost. Helen Slater and the other women on the drive who don't exist just to fix the men. Little Jake Gyllenhaal shows up early as Mitch's kid and already has that quiet stare. Noble Willingham as the ranch owner who sold them the dream vacation and then hands them over to Curly like he's unloading bad stock. Nobody's doing a bit. They're just people stuck in the same dumb idea together. Some of the city jokes show their age—fax machines and power ties—but the core still holds. Mitch keeps checking out of his own life until the drive forces him to stay present. Phil finally says the quiet parts about his marriage out loud. Ed learns that being the tough guy in a bar doesn't mean much when a steer decides to go left. Curly's death lands because the movie didn't spend the first hour turning him into a soft mentor. He stays hard right up to the end, and that makes the lesson stick harder. Pacing dips a little in the middle when they're just riding and complaining, but then the stampede kicks in and you're back. The ending doesn't tie everything in a bow. They get the herd home, they get a little clearer on what matters, and they go back to their lives a little less stupid. That's enough. No big transformation montage. Just three guys who spent two weeks smelling like cows and deciding maybe the one thing isn't a new car or a younger wife. I give it a solid four. Not perfect, not trying to be. It's a comedy that remembers jokes work better when the people telling them might actually get trampled. Palance earned that Oscar the old way—by showing up and not blinking. Crystal carries the worry without turning it into a monologue. The other two keep the triangle from collapsing into one man's midlife speech. If you want a movie that lets men be tired and scared and still useful, this one does the job. I watched it, laughed, felt that little ache when Curly rides off, and turned it off feeling like I got my money's worth. That's rarer than it should be.
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