An unintelligent yet beautiful and persuasive woman (Goldie Hawn) convinces her equally dimwitted husband (William Atherton) to break out of pre-release jail to take their baby son back from a pair of foster parents in Texas. Unfortunately, it's harder than it seems when they hijack a police car with a police officer, wonderfully played by relatively unknown actor Michael Sacks. Spielberg's first theatrical feature (Duel, while released before and even somewhat better than this, was actually originally a TV movie), has his cinematic language and vision stamped all over this. The shot composition, the heavy focus between parent and child, the wonderful John Williams score. The problems come in the form of the story itself. We're stuck in a police cruiser with three horribly underwritten characters who hardly ever leave their one location. This wouldn't be so bad, except the main two protagonists are insufferable. Atherton is a damn fine actor who has a few very funny beats here ("I never shot a man..."), but is generally played in broad strokes. The same can be said, but multiplied with Goldie Hawn, who just seems incredibly miscast here. These two characters are unfathomably stupid, and when the climax of the film arrived, I almost felt nothing for Atherton's dumb, dumb, dumb character decision. Fortunately, Michael Sacks, a relatively amateur actor who didn't go on to much later on, saves much of the film as the captive police offer, you feel for him, especially at the end. Also, Ben Johnson does great work here as the Police Captain trying to end this as peacefully as possible. The Sugarland Express also has huge pacing issues. The film is only 110 minutes, but it feels at least thirty minutes longer. The middle really drags here, because honestly, the script is stretched so thin, almost nothing happens, but the characters are so thin, they just can't keep the movie going in the slow spots. Overall, I think The Sugarland Express is worth watching for the few solid performances, the soundtrack and to see the birth of Spielberg's cinematic style. It's the transition between Duel and Jaws, and you can see the improvement in that famous shark thriller. Give it a watch, just expect to be frustrated by the story, and checking your watch in the middle 40 minutes or so.

Lou-Jean (Goldie Hawn)visits her husband in prison with the sole intention of helping him escape from prison. Lou-Jean informs her husband Clovis (William Atherton) that she has lost custody of their son and asks her husband to assist her in kidnapping their son from his foster parents. Initially, the plan is working until they take a police officer hostage...Based on a true story, The Sugarland Express starts out quite fun and Spielberg gives the film a mostly light-hearted and playful touch to it which makes it moderately enjoyable. Unfortunately, the screenplay does little to develop the main characters making them rather one-dimensional, thinly-drawn and rather uninteresting as people. Presumably this is intended as part road-movie and part character-study, but it isn't fun enough to be classed as a good road-movie (a lot of the film sees the couple being followed round Texas very slowly which hardly makes for an exciting picture). It also fails as a character study because there is precious little to study - the film occasionally mentions the state determining that Lou-Jean is a bad parent and her argument to the contrary, but this is never really explored or given any focus which is a shame because this probably would have made the narrative that bit more involving.Later in the film, there is almost a Stockholm syndrome scenario developing between the kidnapped cop and the couple which again was an interesting direction to take the story in, but again it never really developed into anything; in fact this aspect of the story started out interesting and grew more and more ridiculous as it progressed...The Sugarland Express isn't all bad and does have a few good points about it; Goldie Hawn once again puts on a good show and is great fun to watch here, the supporting cast are all OK, but Hawn easily outshines everyone. The film also has some amusing moments - the car being pushed to the petrol station was one such example.Whilst it starts out well, unfortunately The Sugarland Express has already stretched its thin plot beyond breaking point by the midway point in the film and it starts to become repetitive, tedious and a tad boring. The Sugarland Express once again proves that having Steven Spielberg's name against a film isn't always a cast-iron guarantee of a good quality film.

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.

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.