Continental Divide (1981)

Starring: John Belushi
Grade: C

This is a minor gripe, but there are a lot of hiking scenes in Continental Divide, especially in colder locations. Oddly enough, there isn’t a single time where either of the main characters don gloves. Considering one lives in the fucking mountains, and the other is from Chicago, how do they not own a pair of gloves between the two?

I digress…

Summary

In Chicago, locally famous newspaper reporter Ernie Souchak (Belushi) of the Chicago Sun-Times is at the office typing up a report on corrupt alderman Yablonowitz. After his boss Howard McDermott (Allen Garfield) interrupts his typing for a joke and Ernie playfully flips him off, Ernie takes a walk after work. Some random citizens he knows greet him about his work, and then he meets up with one of his main sources Hellinger (Bruce Jarchow) in an alley. Hellinger hands Ernie the agenda for the buildings committee on Friday and tells Ernie that Yablonowitz has his fingers in items “2” and “4”. Ernie tries to pay Hellinger for the form, but he refuses it because he feels like he’s doing the right thing. They are interrupted by Hellinger stopping his son James from climbing the fire escape. Ernie offers to help James up there by putting him on his shoulders, but he realizes he doesn’t have the height to do it. Before Hellinger departs, he reiterates to Ernie to meet up at 11:30 tomorrow. At the buildings committee meeting, Hellinger is there and watches as the committee goes through the agenda to discuss and vote on things. At one point, Yablonowitz motions for the court stenographer to stop typing momentarily, when the second query from the Sherman committee is brought up about the political principle that a “City Hall connection exists with Metro’s attorneys”. Hellinger notices Yablonowitz doing this, but no one else does. The head member of the committee deduces all three queries as inapplicable and suggests they renew the Metro contract, and they all vote in favor to Hellinger’s dismay. Right after, Hellinger goes to a phone booth to talk discreetly to Ernie, who is in another phone booth only a few spots away from him. Getting the information from the meeting, Ernie puts out his next big headline story: Yablonowitz Flouts 16 Building Laws: Is This a Record?. Privately in his office, Yablonowitz flips out over Ernie getting all this information about him and his deals to his advisors, and he demands they find out who his giving Ernie all the dirt.

That night, two random men try to rob Ernie at gunpoint, but they recognize Ernie in the middle of it and appreciate the nice things he’s said about their neighborhood. As Ernie gives them his wallet and watch, he asks a few more questions about locals in their area, as he’s already conjuring up a story of some sort. They actually have a pleasant conversation about it, all things considered. Next, two cops show up, so the guys give Ernie his stuff back and run off. They approach Ernie, but they don’t have their badges on them. Then, on behalf of Yablonowitz, they beat the hell out of him. Howard visits Ernie in his hospital bed the next day and suggests he lay low for a few weeks and travel to New Orleans to a story on a consortium of developers. Once he gets back, he can pick up where he left off on Yablonowitz, though Ernie refuses to be intimidated. The two meet up for dinner on Sunday at Howard’s home to further discuss the issue because Howard is keen on ordering Ernie to lay off Yablonowitz for a while for his own health. Howard’s wife Sylvia (Carlin Glynn) tries to push Ernie in the right direction over dinner as well, suggesting he take the Neil Porter (Blair Brown) story over the New Orleans one because she thinks it’s better. Ernie has no interest in the continental divide, or “intercontinental crack” as he puts it. When Sylvia brings up how Neil is in the Rocky Mountains, he excuses himself from the table. Still, both Howard and Sylvia try to plead their case to him. The respected scientist in Neil has never been interviewed, and she’s been there for four years, completely alone. All she has are her pet eagles. Even so, Ernie is not interested in what he sees as a boring story. Howard wants Ernie to finish off Yablonowitz too, but he can’t do that if he isn’t healthy. He urges Ernie to go to Wyoming to see Neil. Ernie still refuses but relents after Sylvia gives him the sad eyes. Following this, Ernie is hiking up the Rocky Mountains with an old man named Deke Lewis (Liam Russell) as his guide.

Ernie is already exhausted through the early part of the hike. Later, the two see what Deke calls an “opossum”, which is some forest-dwelling man by his lonesome. The guy fishes with a spear and chases off a deer as the confused Ernie watches on. That night, Ernie and Deke set up a camp at some part of the mountain. As they share a drink from Ernie’s flask, the two discuss him being a reporter, how Neil hates reporters, and how she almost killed a reporter for messing with her eagles. The next morning, the hike continues. They rest for a moment, and Ernie pulls out another cigarette. Deke tries to tell him smoking won’t help, but he does anyway and passes out momentarily from the elevation combined with the smoke. When Ernie finally wakes up, there are two bears around him messing with their equipment. As Ernie prays to God to hopefully not die, Deke shows up and scares the bears off. Ernie is relieved but pissed off because he finds that the bears stole his cigarettes. Eventually, they get to Neil Porter’s cabin in the woods. She isn’t there, but Deke was only hired to get Ernie there, which he did. With this, he leaves Ernie there and promises to meet him back there in two weeks as previously agreed upon. Later in the day, Neil still isn’t there, so Ernie is just stuck out in the cold waiting. He hears something outside and panics, so he uses his backpack to bust open the door and settle inside. Ernie makes a fire for himself and takes a nap. Later, Neil wakes him up by pressing a spear to his chest, which is fair because he did break into her house. She gives him a chance because she assumes he’s a weary hiker way out of his depth, which is basically true, so she lets him sleep when he mentions how tired he is. In the morning, Neil makes him breakfast as they exchange pleasantries. She doesn’t know who he is, so she assumes he’s on a hiking trail and will continue on. Neil brings up how she saw tracks of two people, so she correctly assumes Deke helped him. She likes Deke but calls him a lousy timekeeper. One time, he said he would deliver supplies in November but didn’t show up until May. Ernie laughs this off nervously, remembering how Deke is supposed to be back in two weeks to get him.

The Boston-born Neil questions Ernie a bit more about what where he’s headed, so he finally admits that her place was his destination and how he’s a reporter who wants to do a story on her. She never agreed to such a thing and flips out, demanding he leave her house immediately. Ernie brings up how Deke will get him in two weeks and that he will die out there by himself if he leaves now, so Neil storms out as a response. He washes the dishes for her as an apology while she chops wood outside, acknowledging the irony in this when he approaches her. Neil goes on about how she sees reporters as “parasites who feed off the accomplishments of other people” and has no interest in helping him. When he refers to this area as a “Godforsaken place”, Neil gets offended and takes him over to the “oldest church in America”. It’s an open area where he gets a full view of the mountains, and it’s a beautiful shot of the scenery she lives in every day. Later, Neil works on fixing a generator from under the cabin porch and tells Ernie to leave when he walks by. He assures her he doesn’t want to be there, but he can’t get out of there alone. Once he explains his misery about lack of alcohol and only having 9 cigarettes, Neil laughs this off and agrees to let him stay for the two weeks. Her only condition is that he doesn’t write a single word for his story. He agrees, though he’s inside the cabin later on writing up his story in his notebook. Soon after, Neil comes in and Ernie hides his notebook in his jacket. She’s about to shower, but there’s no door on it and there’s only one main room, so she wants him to wait outside. He’s fine with it. Before exiting, he wants to know what time they’re leaving in the morning. She gets agitated because she doesn’t want a story written about her, but he insists it’s because he just wants to see what she does. Neil notes that what she does isn’t easy, but Ernie jokes that he’ll be fine because he had a cousin in the boy scouts. The next morning, Neil takes Ernie to a spot on the mountain to observe some nearby eagles. Ernie has trouble staying quiet. Neil gives him some binoculars to look through and he spots the eagles she’s looking at.

As she sets up her equipment, Ernie tries to talk to her but makes too much noise and the eagles fly away. Naturally, she doesn’t appreciate this.

At dinner, Ernie insists that what she does isn’t as bad as he thought, but he falls asleep at his chair right after saying it. The next morning, Ernie waits outside with a blanket covering him, as he waits for Neil to finish showering. He makes breakfast for himself with his military western omelet mix and decides to stay back in the cabin for the day. Neil gives him credit for being able to hang yesterday but understands. While Neil is out, Ernie makes a new door for her shower out of leftover wood and makes his grandmother’s goulash for dinner when she gets back. She appreciates his efforts, and Ernie jokes that he’s going to continue by making a new garage door tomorrow. The next morning, Neil uses the shower and Ernie’s makeshift door is barely covering her body. Ernie wakes up and sees her. They look at each other for a moment before Ernie tries to cover it up by acting like he’s reading. The two go to another spot to view some eagles, as Ernie smokes his last cigarette. Just then, they are interrupted by several gunshots in succession. Neil runs towards the noise, and Ernie follows. Acting as a member of the Department of the Interior, Neil knocks down two hunters who are shooting their shotguns. She takes one of the guns and holds them both at gunpoint while explaining how they shot at a bald eagle, which is punishable by 2-10 years in the federal penitentiary. After getting their names, she breaks both guns while telling them there are only 2,000 bald eagles left in North America because of people like them. She adds that she will allow them to go by themselves to the Ranger’s station at Fort Creek to talk to Captain Clark to give their names. If they don’t get there in three days, they will be hearing from the FBI. That night, Neil takes a look at a map where she’s been tracking the whereabouts of certain eagles. Referring to two as Reginald and Claire, she talks about how three years ago, they abandoned their nest on Cougar Ridge and began to build another nest where the Wind River bends.

Ernie isn’t paying attention though, as he sniffs her hair as she talks aloud about the map. She tells him to stop, but he doubles down and tries to flirt with her. She gets mad and leaves. Later, he adds more to his report and Neil catches him in the act. She’s bothered at first but surprisingly agrees to let him do a story on her after he accepts fault in what he did. While doing her observations, Neil is short with Ernie and messes with him a bit during his questioning. Ernie gets annoyed with this and tries to explain how some people find other people’s stories fascinating, which is why he’s doing this. She seems to understand him more from this perspective. That night, the two discuss Ernie’s path to becoming a reporter, how it’s possible people become reporters because they find other people interesting and they are boring, and she counters that people might find eagles interesting for the same reason. They start to laugh a little over Ernie’s first name since everyone calls him “Souchak”, and he kisses her on the cheek. She yells at him, and he’s somehow offended over her not giving it up. He agrees to not try to pursue anything further and she thanks him, and they awkwardly finish the dishes together. Before they go to sleep, Neil tells Ernie he can’t come with her tomorrow, though she assures him it has nothing to do with what happened after dinner. He’s cool with it but wonders why. She explains that some things she does there she has to do alone. Curious, Ernie follows her the next morning to see what she’s up to. Neil walks to a certain spot, and the forest-dweller that Ernie and Deke saw earlier shows up. It looks like he’s going to attack Neil, so Ernie follows them. He is about to attack the dude with a rock, but he stops once he sees that it was playfighting. Neil knows the man, and the two get intimate in a field. Deflated, Ernie heads back to the cabin.

What started as an unwanted visit has now become a quest for love for Ernie. Now, he’s just not sure if he should still pursue Neil, forget about it and go back to life in Chicago, or find a way to have both.

My Thoughts:

In the second to last film of John Belushi’s career, Continental Divide stands as his lone attempt at a romantic comedy, yielding mixed results. As a huge fan of Belushi’s short but undeniably unforgettable mark that he left on the entertainment industry as a whole, the most attractive thing about the Lawrence Kasdan-penned film is simply the rarity of it all. In the star’s final two movies, Belushi gave us a glimpse of his depth and potential for what could have been of his already legendary career. He took chances and was looking to take more, which is why movies like Continental Divide and his last film Neighbors stand out as must-see movies. Make no mistake about it, they aren’t must-see because of the quality of the films themselves but rather for analysis, discussion, and research purposes regarding the career of one the biggest stars of the late 70s and early 80s.

For the record, the grade of Continental Divide won’t go up simply because of how interesting it is to analyze such a different movie in the star’s filmography. It’s just the biggest contributing factor to going out of your way to watch it. By itself, the movie is decent, nothing more. Belushi can’t help but shine because of his natural charisma, but the rest of the film has either trouble figuring out what it wants to be or would benefit much more in being two different movies entirely. The first act is nothing like the rest of the movie. It begins in this hardened Chicago where Ernie Souchak is deep into the underbelly of the city, reporting things that could get him into trouble. Because of this, he’s mugged, he’s beaten, and his life is threatened. Despite this, the tough reporter wants to continue his work in taking down alderman Yablonowitz, as he sees this as almost his duty because of the position he’s in. Then, the second act takes him to the Rockies and it’s as if everything is forgotten about. To be fair, if anyone has found themselves on a hike or trek into the mountains after living in the city for so long, the feelings Ernie goes through in dealing with life in Wyoming is accurate. When you’re standing there breathing the freshest air you’ve ever ingested, it’s hard not to feel more present than ever before. Nothing before or after matters. In terms of direction, this part of the movie is handled well because putting a character like Ernie in this situation would yield similar results. The problem is that the first act is so far gone once the story is entrenched in the mountains, this part of the movie feels meaningless, especially once things start to heat up between Neil and Ernie. By the time he gets back to Chicago, the viewer feels just as empty as Ernie does because the reporter stuff is so irrelevant at that point in time. Though it’s a great way to show how much he loved Neil because of how dejected he becomes with his old life, it’s also why the third act is such a mixed bag that unravels with almost every scene. At first it makes sense, but then Ernie just finds himself out of his funk following Hellinger’s death and all the energy of the movie is focused on nabbing Yablonowitz again.

In reality, we are so far past Ernie’s war with the alderman that it doesn’t have the energetic feel it should, even after Ernie finds him at the restaurant and threatens him before being kicked out. Yeah, it brings out his passion to write again, but it’s treated as if it’s his purpose when it’s not anymore. Neil is his purpose. Writing again should not be the thing that brought back his passion for life. His focus being on writing at this stage in his life doesn’t align with the goals of the story or the character. At this point of the film, we know the movie is about Ernie’s love for Neil, so pushing it to the side to tie up the loose ends of the first part of the movie in him being this heroic reporter just makes you shrug, as it doesn’t matter anymore. It’s timewaster because the only thing that should matter is Ernie’s love for Neil. Who gives a fuck about Yablonowitz now? Once it’s announced that Neil is coincidentally doing a lecture at the Field Musuem after Ernie gets his mojo back with a few more news headlines, where we don’t even get to see the satisfaction of Yablonowitz losing it and it’s just described that he fled, the final 15-20 minutes are exactly what is expected. Once again, Continental Divide should have been divided into two movies because together, both storylines faltered. The main plot of the romantic angle never felt right. Ernie and Neil were already mismatched in Wyoming to begin with, and it was dually hard to see a romance develop between John Belushi and Blair Brown. Though they had a decent rapport, and Neil’s reactions to Ernie’s quips or complaints were fun, the romantic spark was hard to digest, at least in the manner they tried to sell it. At times, you’ll find yourself furrowing your brow thinking, “I guess I can see it”. Other times, you start thinking, “Maybe, she just needs to get out more”. This is fueled further when they reconnect in Chicago during her visit and somehow seem even FURTHER distanced from each other to the point where you wonder how they ever got involved in the first place. The two don’t live in different states. They live in different dimensional planes! The only reason we can buy into their romance was because of a lack of other people involved that could muck things up.

Ernie acts like he’s over Neil and tells Howard at dinner that it only happened because “she was the only girl there, and the air was thin”, but has he considered this going both ways? From what we see in Neil’s lonely life of observing eagles, there are only three men she’s encountered over the last four years living in her remote cabin. By the time the credits roll, she’s had sex with two of them. Deke Lewis is the third guy, but he was ancient, so it’s not like that was going to happen. When this is put into consideration, the two complete opposites of Belushi’s Ernie and Brown’s Neil getting intimate in close quarters are hard to get into at first, though ultimately understood because being the only man and woman in this cabin for that long are bound to yield some type of results. I can even suspend my disbelief into buying the two thinking they are in love, despite the time they share together being only the span of a few weeks. With Ernie being so work-obsessed previously and having no relationships to speak of, and Neil doing the same but on a worse scale because she has very little human interaction in general, I can see why they get attached in short order. Mathematically, it makes sense when their backgrounds are taken into consideration. However, the road to get there was very uncomfortable. Neil shuns Ernie’s advances several times over when he tries kissing her, it gets really awkward for a majority of the buildup because of it, there’s a noticeable lack of sexual chemistry between the two, and neither the screenplay nor Brown’s acting does a good enough job in convincing the audience that she loves Ernie as much as Ernie loves her. In all honesty, the attraction is one-sided until Neil kisses back when the time comes in that tent and she’s wearing his dumbass hat. Even then, it’s not as authentic as you’d like it to be. They show how depressed Ernie is upon his return to Chicago, how he has all these framed pictures of Neil at his apartment, and how he is using the walking stick he got in Wyoming to walk around Chicago, but they show nothing of Neil’s reaction to Ernie’s departure.

For all we know, she could have gotten over it. Neither one of them reached out to the other either. There’s no scene or topic of discussion where one tried to call the other or anything. They could have had a small sequence where maybe an emotional Neil tried to call Ernie from a nearby payphone but hung up because it was too painful or vice versa. That alone would have helped in selling this romance as something undying, but she’s quickly forgotten about once he gets back to Chicago, and we’re just supposed to care about taking down Yablonowitz again when it’s the furthest thing from our minds. By the time we’re finally taking the turn to this corner, Neil is suddenly back. It’s just mishandled all around, as was the ending. Ending it on the train after Ernie paid for a ticket to stay to the next stop was the way to go. It would have left a lot to the viewers’ imagination as to where the two would go from there as a couple, but it would be just enough for them to be at ease because they would at least know Ernie and Neil will pursue something resembling a relationship. However, they went the Lord of the Rings route. Just when you thought it was over, they included another scene, then another, and then another, to finally reaching this cop-out finale that gave us more questions than answers because of the logistics surrounding it.

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

Knowing that Neil doesn’t want to leave Wyoming and is noticeably uncomfortable in Chicago, and Ernie doesn’t want to leave Chicago because he loves his job and can’t do it in Wyoming, why would the logical decision be for them to get married for a $10 fee and then head back to their separate houses in different states? When would this ever work in any relationship ever? Kasdan’s screenplays and love of movies have been inspired by films from the 1930s and 40s and such (which explains the news reporter caricature that Ernie Souchak basically is), and this conclusion seems to align with what he loves, but it comes off as dumb in a modern context. Additionally, this decided upon ending was just overkill. The movie should have concluded in one of two ways. Again, the easiest way to do it was to stop things on the train when Ernie finds Neil in her room to say goodbye, but he ends up staying and they have sex over and over again. Once Ernie pays the train worker for an extra ticket to the next stop, and the guy sees Ernie with no pants and says, “That’ll give you about an hour” before walking off, the credits could roll right then and there. Unfortunately, the overkill came right after, with Ernie paying for more and more tickets to beat the joke to death, and he follows it up with getting to Wyoming with her. Then, they just decide to get married on the spot. It just doesn’t make sense for such a rash decision to be made. At most, they could have acknowledged the difficulty of their living situations and career pursuits but fearlessly agree to doing their hardest to making it work, even if it might be long-distance. After all, they never officially started dating. It was more or a less a passioned fling. Granted, it was hard to forget for either of them, which is why they know a serious love is there, but a jump into marriage seems idiotic, as the timeline of events is too close together to make such a life-altering decision.

The other way to take the ending, which I’m disappointed that Lawrence Kasdan didn’t take considering his resume, is the lay-up of Ernie just accepting that his heart and their relationship is in Wyoming. They set this up well with Howard and Sylvia talking to each other when discussing the depressed Ernie following his return. When Sylvia tells Howard that he can’t expect Neil to give up her life’s work for Ernie, Howard counters with the fact that Sylvia kind of did it for him and suggests she doesn’t have any regrets about it. Though she doesn’t respond enthusiastically per say, implying she does have regrets, this one conversation was what should have led to the conclusion of the story, with Ernie doing the reverse of what Howard and Sylvia went through. Neil shouldn’t have to give up her life’s work for him, but that doesn’t mean Ernie can’t. He should have come to the conclusion that his love for Neil was stronger than his column and deciding to make the move because of it. He finished off Yablonowitz like he wanted, so there was nothing else holding him back. Though Ernie did like his job, him not wanting to move to Wyoming to write a novel like Neil suggested because he likes his short column is a weak reason. A sacrifice had to be made, and from a story and character perspective, Ernie should have been the one to make said sacrifice. You’re telling me he can’t find a similar writing job in the West after working for the Chicago Sun-Times, or come to the realization that Neil is much more important to him? Yeah, get real. His connection to Chicago by the time she reenters the picture is mostly because of his celebrity as this point, as evidenced by a plane flying by with a banner stating, “Only the Sun-Times has Souchak”. It’s very surface-level. Him trying to sell the noticeably tense Neil on Chicago, while lovingly talking about all the bad things about the place, just makes it more and more obvious where they need to go from a writing perspective. Not taking this obvious avenue handed to them on a silver platter is baffling.

Again, the two deciding they love each other but they want to stay in their respective states AND GET MARRIED is just plain dumb.

In the midst of the mixed bag that was Continental Divide, the inclusion of current forest-dweller and former Washington Redskins defensive end and Rookie of the Year Max Bernbaum (Tony Ganios) was perplexing to say the least. At first, it’s a funny segue because of Ernie being enthralled with him after finding out who he is, following Max almost murdering him, and the two becoming friends. However, Max comes and goes and is quickly forgotten about, despite his inclusion initially looking like a major breakthrough in understanding more about where Neil is coming from. We can only assume Max is the one person she’s had relations with since living in the mountains, so he has to have something to offer from a story perspective. Apparently not however, as the character is dropped out of nowhere. He makes a huge splash by almost killing Ernie with a knife, he has this weirdly interesting backstory about being a star in the NFL and inexplicably leaving the game forever in the fourth quarter of a game with 8:35 to go (and never explaining why he didn’t want to play anymore and decided to fuck off to the mountains for some reason), and he has a bond with both main characters. Despite all this time dedicated to his sequence, Neil takes him outside to call it quits between them, she denies it being because of Ernie, they kiss, and they depart ways. After this, we don’t see Max for the rest of the movie. What the hell was that about? One could argue that part of it was to show Neil starting to like Ernie and her using this opportunity to end it with Max, but it never felt like that with the way it was handled. She was just with Max hours before and who knows how long before Ernie ever made the trek out there. The only emotion she showed during this timeframe was minor jealously when Max’s attention was diverted to Ernie once he realized who Ernie was and the two befriended one another. Not once did Blair Brown’s performance or anything the Neil character did make the viewer think she was consciously or subconsciously making this decision between the two men to give Ernie a chance.

Even in private when she’s talking to Max, she gives no inkling to taking a liking to Ernie, or better yet, why she has decided right this moment to end things with Max. Max, bless his heart, tells Neil that she can talk with Ernie because it makes no difference on what they do, but Neil just say, “It’s not that”, and the whole thing is dropped. What is it then? At most, the sliver of a possibility that Neil may like Ernie is her referring to Max as a friend/acquaintance at best to him to downplay their relationship. On the other hand, it still doesn’t come off necessarily as Neil being attracted to Ernie. It was more or less just a general statement to make sure Ernie doesn’t print anything regarding their relationship in his column, as well as to explain why Max wouldn’t be coming back. Then again, maybe she is just that guarded when it comes to love, even though we have no reason to believe that.

Regardless, how they missed an amusing callback of Max showing up to their “wedding” in the final minutes of the movie is beyond me.

Continental Divide does a great job at shooting the landscapes of Chicago, Illinois, and areas of Wyoming and getting a feel for the life and energy of both places. Considering how the story shifts back and forth for long stretches between the locations, and the stark difference between the two mismatched lead characters, the locations play a major part in how the story develops, which is why this is more important than one may realize on paper. The locations themselves represent the heart of the characters and who they are. The quick-witted, cigarette smoking, only-person-in-the-city-wearing-a-fedora Ernie Souchak lives and breathes the life of inner-city Chicago. It’s busy, it’s crowded, and it’s crime-riddled, but there’s an exciting quality to the city that is endearing. When Ernie speaks of his beloved town, he talks about it with such exuberance that you can see where he’s coming from, despite the fact that the viewer has already seen him be mugged in an alley, beaten up by two off-duty cops who were paid off by a corrupt official, his friend being murdered, and his apartment being bombed. He enjoys the chaotic life of the city and revels in it, which is why he initially sees Neil’s story in Wyoming as boring. It could also be why he isn’t necessarily gung-ho about going back to Wyoming, though this could be because of the PTSD from being mauled by a cougar. Either way, Neil’s enthusiasm and love of nature coincides with the beautiful imagery found in the snowy Rockies. It’s freeing to her and with the way it’s filmed, these feelings resonate with the viewer, as they find a newfound appreciation for this side of the United States much like Ernie does. Even though Ernie hurt his back on the mountain and had to be carried by the (evidently) strong-legged Neil, it was a great way to milk the scenery even more since the shooting of the landscapes is one of the movie’s biggest positives.

Though a lot of Neil’s metaphors about wanting Ernie to think of himself as the object that is being conquered and how it relates to his pursuit of her were overblown on her part and didn’t come off nearly as smooth as Kasdan wanted, I did like Neil’s description of the white feather gift to Ernie. She speaks about an Indian legend about bald eagles and how they “pushed the sun across the sky” and how the sun’s heat turned their head feathers white. This is why the feather is a sign of strength and courage given to those who have proved themselves in battle, making this feather a really cool reward for Ernie to get because of the meaning Neil attached to it. Plus, it gave Ernie more of a reason to try and pull off his fedora.

Underwritten in some parts and overwritten in others, Continental Divide is a decently amusing romantic comedy but doesn’t do enough in either the romance or the humor to warrant too high of a grade. The love is written, but it’s not felt. When it gets close to making things connect, the movie doesn’t know when it pushes too far or not enough. Then, other elements are thrown in that only hinder the story, stopping it from getting better or at the very least, to a logical or even cinematically pleasing conclusion. For fans of John Belushi, it’s worth watching because he only has a handful of movies in general. If we’re being truthful in regards to cinema however, it’s nothing more than a middling romantic comedy that never quite gets there.