If you can imagine a cross between "Bagdad Cafe" and "1984" done as a gangster flic you might be half way to getting Alan Rudolph's "Trouble in Mind", that is if you really want to get it. Most people didn't which is hardly surprising since this virtually plotless film smacks of the worst kind of art-house pretentiousness that mid-eighties American cinema could come up with. Rudolph directs it skilfully enough; the problem lies with his dreadful screenplay which doesn't allow talented performers like Kris Kristofferson, Genevieve Bujold, Keith Carradine, Lori Singer and Joe Morton the opportunity to develop their one-dimensional characters though Dirk Blocker and an almost unrecognizable Divine make for a couple of entertaining gangsters.
It's all set around Bujold's coffee-house in Rain City, (Seattle, actually), where the lives of the various characters come together but these aren't lives you can get involved with. This is a movie that doesn't work as a comedy, a drama or a thriller; it's nothing really except a waste of two hours of your life. The only plus is another splendid Mark Isham score and Marianne Faithful's voice on the soundtrack.
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