Pure Country

(Christopher Cain, USA, 1992)

In Pure Country, singer-songwriter star George Strait plays Dusty, a performer who – as he tells us many times over – is sick of "the smoke, the lights" of his high-energy showbiz career.

There is so much smoke and so many lights, in fact, that when Dusty walks away and ambitious young brat Buddy (Kyle Chandler) takes his place on stage, no one in the screaming crowd is any the wiser.

But Dusty has higher things on his mind, like getting back in touch with his "pure country" roots.

Movies about Country'n'Western music – indeed, most musical styles – tend to be fancifully contrived and utterly mythological, spinning a screen story out of the deepest, dearest clichés and sentiments of the songs featured so prominently on the soundtrack.

If you love Strait's music and can vibe along with the genre's standard operating level of corn, you will probably enjoy this film.

As myself a fan of Baja Oklahoma (1988) and Honeysuckle Rose (1980), I especially warmed to Lesley Ann Warren's typical role as Dusty's neurotic, big city manager.

MORE music films: The Thing Called Love, What's Love Got to Do with It?, Ray

© Adrian Martin March 1994