Scott LeBrun One could see that budding young director Steven Spielberg was going places when he broke into films with this based-on-fact action drama. It stars Goldie Hawn as Lou Jean Poplin, a young lady who helps her husband Clovis (veteran character actor William Atherton, "Ghost Busters", "Die Hard") escape from prison. Since neither of them are squeaky clean people, their son Langston has ended up being adopted. Lou Jean is hellbent on getting the boy back, and stops at nothing to make her way to Sugarland. Along the way, they'll be tailed by an experienced lawman (Ben Johnson, solid as a rock as always) and will take a Texas state trooper (the very good Michael Sacks) hostage.Masterfully shot in Panavision by the great Vilmos Zsigmond, and given a lovely, often harmonica based score by John Williams, "The Sugarland Express" does deliver engaging entertainment. Even if Lou Jean and Clovis aren't particularly certain about how they'll go about their mission, you can't deny their passion, and can at least understand their cause. After some time on the road, they earn the sympathies of a number of Texans, and become celebrities. They may be somewhat shady people, but they don't mistreat Officer Slide (Sacks). We also see Captain Tanner (Johnson) become sympathetic to them, but he still has a job to do and will have a tough decision to make.Vivid location shooting adds further appeal, as well as some truly intense shootouts, an explosion or two, and a lot of extremely well orchestrated vehicular stunts supervised by Carey Loftin (who worked with Spielberg on 'Duel'). "The Sugarland Express" has some very action packed bits, and doesn't take many breathers, but it does flesh out these characters adequately.The cast all does respectable work. Hawn, Johnson, Sacks, and Atherton are capably supported by familiar faces like Gregory Walcott, Steve Kanaly, and Louise Latham, and Texas based character players such as Jessie Lee Fulton, Bill Thurman, and James N. Harrell. Langston is played by the adorable offspring of producer Richard D. Zanuck.While this marked a solid outing for Spielberg, he truly hit the stratosphere with his follow-up film "Jaws".Eight out of 10.

Leofwine_draca THE SUGARLAND EXPRESS was the first film that Steven Spielberg made that was released to cinemas. A year later he would make JAWS and never look back, so this quirky oddity, mostly forgotten about today even by Spielberg fans, is worth a look. It's a familiar car chase caper, a genre which was all the rage back in the '70s.The film charts an odd line between intense character drama and comedy. Most of the humour comes from the quirky supporting characters and the situations in which they find themselves. The crowd scene at the climax is chaotically done and very well handled by a director in his prime. Goldie Hawn looks impossibly young as the female lead, but the real star for me is William Atherton, a decade away from his typecasting as the usual '80s baddie in the likes of GHOSTBUSTERS and DIE HARD.The film is packed with well-shot car chase scenes, the scale of which is remarkable given the obviously low budget Spielberg had to work with, although none of them are particularly thrilling or exciting. You never get a chance to feel really involved with the storyline or the characters. Some of Spielberg's cinematography is very good, and the film as a whole has a naturalistic feel to it. It's not my favourite '70s car film, but it's certainly not bad. Plus, it has an ending nearly as downbeat as the one in DIRTY MARY, CRAZY LARRY, which is very unusual for a Spielberg film.

Mr-Fusion "The Sugarland Express" is an altogether satisfying movie-going experience, and ably shows off Spielberg's skill as a director. He knew from the very beginning how to get great performances out of his actors (namely Goldie Hawn, William Atherton, Ben Johnson and Michael Sacks), how to ratchet the tension with clever editing as the climax approaches, and there's some interesting camera work with the continuous shots in and around cars. And the story itself is so out there that you just have no idea how this thing will end. Things move at a steadily outlandish clip, with one getaway car pursued by fifty, and our main characters even stop for some fried chicken and a pee break. Then the car lot shootout changes the mood, double-crosses start to unfold and the foreboding really sets in. Hawn's daffiness is a delight here, and really underscores the goofy ride that is most of this movie. And that snide change in tone is what really gives "The Sugarland Express" its lasting impact. 8/10

rowmorg Scores of fictional Texas police cars trail the pair of gun-wielding criminals who want their child back from his foster parents. Goldie Hawn plays Lou Jean, who insists on a shag with her hubby before she leads him out of jail to seek their child and gets him killed. She is a total menace and should never have got her son back, which she apparently did a few years later. The whole film is an irresponsible lie, making the pair into heroes, their hostage into a sucker, the people of Texas into clowns and the police forces into utter goons. It's a mystery how Goldie Hawn got involved in this frightful Spielberg travesty, which he followed rapidly with his hideous travesty of sharks, Jaws. The picture is utterly formulaic, with developments at every timed plot point. Goldie Hawn's character is incredibly shallow and her partner, played by William Atherton, is a mindless criminal. It's not a pretty story at all, except with Spielberg's icing lavished over it. I never believed those scores of police cars for one minute.