Saddled with the foreclosure of their ailing Iowa farm, two brothers do the logical thing and burn it to the ground, embarking on an idyllic crime spree through Middle America and becoming folk heroes, which if nothing else seems to be a great way to meet sexy women. The script makes a brave attempt to dramatize the plight of farmers facing tough times, but unlike the drought-stricken heartland it suffers from an overabundance of corn. For a while the film wavers between being passable entertainment and an embarrassing, beer commercial ode to amber waves of grain, but whenever it threatens to become halfway interesting something obvious invariably happens: a lonely widow becomes available or a cop car comes into view, and so forth. Richard Gere downplays his matinée idol glamour, but not enough to disguise his resemblance to an American Gigolo playing Old MacDonald. And featured in the flashback introduction is (of course) Nikita Khrushchev; it figures that somewhere behind all the economic chaos of the Corn Belt the Commies had to be at fault.
Review of Miles from Home
