FeistyUpper If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Platicsco Good story, Not enough for a whole film

AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Ed-Shullivan The two lead actors Andrew McCarthy and Matt Dillon did an admirable job in their roles as two drifters who by happen stance meet while freeloading on a moving train through Kansas. I really enjoyed the opening 10 minutes of the film and the Director's (David Stevens) use of the wheat combines chomping through a Kansas wheat field as the opening credits rolled along. I believed I was in for a pretty good film. Within the first 30 minutes a lot had occurred which I do not want to spoil for the viewers who have not yet watched the film so no spoiler alert is required.As the plot progresses and the two lead characters roles emerge Doyle Kennedy (Matt Dillon) as the alpha male and his unsuspecting accomplice Wade Corey (Andrew McCarthy) continue on their mini crime spree it does not take them long to realize that they need to go their separate ways to avoid arrest and they agree to meet up later.Doyle being a bit psychotic without a conscience wants to have a few drinks and connect with an old girlfriend. While Wade is looking for a way to continue his route to New York where he is expected as the Best Man at his friends wedding. So Wade stumbles upon a farm that is willing to give him a couple of weeks work in the wheat fields. Wade falls for the bosses daughter and he finds himself in a dilemma with his recent new criminal associate Doyle who wants to get the money they stole and move on out of town. Unfortunately for Doyle his criminal past and his distinguishing features (duh Wade!) leave the local police with an easy target to re-apprehend him.The latter half of the film was predictable and a bit hokey. I thought because of the strong performances and cinema appeal of the first half of the film that maybe the production ran out of time and/or money and so a different director may have been used to complete the film. Since the first half of the film was so appealing I felt the latter half was a bit of a let down by the director David Stevens.As a result I have rated the film a 6 out of 10. It is worth watching still but don't expect a great ending to a film that started off very strong.

alicecbr Forget the critics. Each one of Matt Dillon's movies is in and of itself a gem, both with the unique characterizations, the photography, the direction and the writing. this one is a good example.Just once before i die, however, I hope that ONE movie will take a sociopath such as Matt Dillon plays so well and give us an explanation. There were enough scenes in which he gets this introspective look in his eyes. That would be the great place for a flashback to the poor-looking home he came from, with the decent sounding, resigned and heart-broken father and the mother walking into the house, as the cops walk up to them to report yet another crime done by their son. What happened to him there? The police report to us that he came from a good home, church-going family. As he drives the stolen car down the highway in his stolen clothes, he is listening to gospel music on the car radio. What went wrong? Plenty of twists and turns in this movie, as you wonder if McCarthy will suddenly turn on Dillon when he gets the chance or continue to play the 'straight arrow'. Unfortunately, the movie goes for the Hollywood ending, instead of the one it should. Vagrants coming in off the freight train don't marry the rancher's daughter, no matter how nice it sounds....even when he saves a kid's life.The beauty of the sunflowers in the Kansas field will remind you of Van Gogh and HIS madness. The sight of Dillon practicing his gun draw will take you right back to DeNiro in "TaxiDriver". The sight of Dillon backing his car up to crash into the police car will remind you of the same 'unique' sight in 'Albino Alligator'. Obviously the guy doing the commentary on the 'Alligator' DVD never saw 'Kansas'.I am hoping that all of Dillon's movies will eventually wind up on a DVD with commentary by Dillon. It would add immeasurably to our understanding of the characters. Also, I'd love to hear what his relationship with McCarthy was and is. Of course, there Dillon is with one of his "Singles" co-stars, Kyra Sedgwick.....Kevin Bacon's wife. Yep, Kevin Bacon who he starred with in "Wild Things". Oh, how incestuous these Hollywood stars are. Obviously, Dillon gets along well with these folks.So, we've seen Dillon play the hood, the maniac, the hot rod racer, the shyster detective. When will he play an Irish guy and be true to his roots? Even though he drinks in this movie and others, you never see him drunk. Oh, yes: "Factotum". Stay tuned.

dominik96 Two strangers find themselves in a small Kansas town. Matt Dillon, the bad boy, constrains the other guy to a bank robbery, and this and the resulting problems with a police search, hideaway ,sharing the money etc. makes up the story. Don't want to get into details, so you have more of this movie. I was surprised about the low rating and the classification of this movie as thriller. Because it is definitely no thriller!! The beginning and the first half are hilarious!! The whole background of Kansas and a small town is wonderful, and is not only nice to watch, but becomes part of the story. The pace is high and Matt has some great comedian moments in it, really funny!! I could go on and on about the wonderful first half. At this time, the movie is definitely a 7, and with more work effort, it would have become more, but that's hypothetically. The second half is far worse. Matt character can't decide if it is evil or crazy,the whole love story is too much,no surprising elements and the pace becomes far too slow. At the end i gave it a 7, but the second half is a 5. Nonetheless it's worth to watch it, because there are not many movies out there, which can profit so much from a background.

Brandt Sponseller Matt Dillon and Andrew McCarthy were two of the biggest actors in teen-oriented films in the 1980s, and rightfully so. Dillon was in The Outsiders (1983) and Rumble Fish (1983), for example, and McCarthy was in St. Elmo's Fire (1985), Pretty in Pink (1986) and Less Than Zero (1987). They turned in good performances in those films. Their teaming for Kansas should have been huge, but maybe it came just a little too late. This was toward the end of the 1980s, after all. A lot of generational change was in the air. Both Dillon and McCarthy made a couple big films after Kansas, and they've both been working ever since, but they've been more under the radar.Kansas only earned two and a half million dollars on its U.S. theatrical release. That's a shame, because this is a very good film. It's not perfect, but it doesn't deserve being ignored as it has. I think it was mostly ignored in the late 80s, too. I hadn't even heard of the film until just recently. The critical reception couldn't have been too positive, and director David Stevens hasn't directed since. He's still working, but primarily as a very under the radar writer for television. The only person to go on to bigger and better things has been cinematographer David Eggby, who has been the D.P. on Pitch Black (2000), Scooby Doo (2002) and others. This is because Eggby's work in this film has deservedly received a lot of praise. There are a lot of beautiful widescreen shots of Kansas that do much to both establish and complement/contrast the tone of the dramatic material.Kansas tells of a brief, ultimately tumultuous encounter between two young men, Doyle Kennedy (Dillon) and Wade Corey (McCarthy). Corey is out west, about to hop a freight train--he's eventually bound for New York. Kennedy happens to be in the open-door car Corey is trying to hop, so he helps him jump in. Kennedy says that he's headed to Kansas. He pitches Corey on the hospitality of his fellow Kansans and suggests that Corey stay for a few days.It doesn't take long until another side--a more typical Matt Dillon side I suppose we could say--begins to emerge. Despite the fact that Kennedy advertised that folks would be feeding them for free wherever they went, he decides to break into to a family's home while the family is at church so they can make themselves breakfast. Corey doesn't flinch, but when Kennedy's criminal behavior escalates, he does. He's "forcibly" dragged into a serious crime. Kennedy and Corey are almost caught. In the chaos, Corey unexpectedly commits an act of heroism. The two lose each other but remain in the same area. Corey just wants to forget about the incident and get on with his life, but he has something that Kennedy wants; meanwhile, the whole state is trying to find the unknown hero, who was roughly caught on film.Let's get the slight flaws out of the way first. Most of Stevens' previous directorial experience was in television. Maybe as a result of this, Kansas has a slight made for television feel, where that description is necessarily a bit negative (there are films actually made for television that transcend the made for television feel). What that means is that it has a bit of a potboiler quality, with a slight shallowness of emotional investment in the characters. I'm emphasizing "slight" because there's just a hint of this in Stevens' style--something like when there's a "hint of autumn" in the air when you get a coolish breeze in early October.However, not helping this is that Pino Donaggio's score is extremely maudlin with an "After School Special" flavor. It sounds almost like generic production music for the old Easy Listening radio formats. In my eyes, this was the biggest flaw of the film.At times, a few plot developments seem flawed, but because of later developments, I think the plot oddities are interesting complexities and twists instead. For example, it might seem curious why scripter Spencer Eastman doesn't just have Corey give Kennedy what he wants and completely divorce himself from events of the recent past--after all, he's trying to start a new life, and that's going pretty successfully. However, Corey's character is more complicated than that. He's not just trying to go on the straight and narrow. That's why he didn't flinch when they first broke into that home to make breakfast. That's why he rides the rails for transportation. The character is more nuanced than he seems.Another example--there's a reporter who fuels a lot of the plot. He trusts Kennedy at a later stage when it seems largely unjustified. However, two points emerge that explain this. One, he obviously knows Kennedy fairly well given the way they talk to each other, so he might have more reason to trust him than we're shown, even though Kennedy's a bit of a psycho and a criminal. Two, the reporter doesn't trust Kennedy enough to not hesitate until he receives more information. Eastman's script is actually well constructed, suspenseful, occasionally surprising, and neatly ties up most loose ends.Dillon and McCarthy both play characters perfect for their abilities (which is probably why they played these kinds of characters so often). Dillon is great as a subtle psycho. He seems closer to normal and even-keeled for much of the film, but odd little breaks in the façade keep showing through; this is a guy whom we could easily imagine ending up as a serial killer.While this is not a film that's likely to change your life, or leave a profound impact that sticks with you for years, not all films have to do that or even aim for it, obviously. This is just a very good thriller/character study admirably set in a relatively unique location. It deserves more recognition.