Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw

Directed by Mark L. Lester, Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw follows Marjoe Gortner’s Lyle Wheeler as he steals a car and embarks on a crime spree across New Mexico – with the character eventually hooking up with an aspiring country singer (Lynda Carter’s Bobbie Jo Baker) and her friends. It’s a familiar, well-worn premise that’s employed to sporadically watchable yet predominantly forgettable effect by Lester, as the filmmaker, armed with Vernon Zimmerman’s screenplay, delivers a sluggish drama that spends much of its first half focused on the meandering shenanigans of its protagonists – with the movie, for example, detailing Lyle’s pinball-related encounter with rough locals and the group’s drug-fueled swim alongside a Native American. The personable work of the various actors, including (and especially) Carter’s appealing, star-making work as the title character, and a smattering of decent action-related interludes goes a long way towards cultivating a relatively tolerable atmosphere, and it’s worth noting, as well, that Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw does improve slightly as it progresses into its comparatively eventful final third (which revolves mostly about the group’s increasingly reckless exploits) – with the final result a brisk-yet-not-brisk-enough endeavor that’s about as erratic and dated as one might’ve anticipated.

** out of ****