Product Description

Comic genius Billy Crystal (When Harry Met Sally) stars in this hilarious film about cowboys, careers and mid-life crises. Co-starring Daniel Stern, Bruno Kirby and Jack Palance in an Academy AwardÂ(r)-winning* role, City Slickers is "the rowdiest western jokefest since Blazing Saddles" (Rolling Stone). It'll rope you in...and keep you laughing from first frameto last! New Yorker Mitch Robbins (Crystal) is 39 and miserable. He's tired of his job andbored with his life. And his two best friends Ed, (Kirby) and Phil (Stern), aren't doing much better. So when they all decide to chase their troubles away with a fantasy vacation, Mitch and his pals trade their briefcases for saddlebags and set out to find freedom and adventure herding cattle underthe wide New Mexico sky. But what they discover instead is scorching sun, sore backsides...and moreinsight into themselvesand each otherthan they ever thought possible! *1991: Supporting Actor

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8513 in DVD
• Released on: 2001-05-08
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French
• Subtitled in: French, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 114 minutes

Amazon.com
Three middle-age buddies (Billy Crystal, Daniel Stern, Bruno Kirby) facing personal crises decide to sign up for a two-week cattle run for a change of pace. The trail proves a tougher place than anyone thought, and the boss (Jack Palance) is a grizzled taskmaster who doesn't cotton to tenderfoot urbanites. Popular in theaters, the film is both funny and moving, with Crystal giving one of his most complete performances and Palance (who won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar) a lot of colorful fun. Director Ron Underwood (Heart and Souls) subtly shifts the tone of the film from broad comedy to poignancy over its running time, and he makes the story's end a bittersweet victory that feels like life as most people know it. --Tom Keogh

From The New Yorker
This feel-good comedy, directed by Ron Underwood from a script by Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, is a depressingly efficient piece of Hollywood product. The hero, Mitch Robbins (Billy Crystal), is a thirty-nine-year-old New York family man who's going through a killer midlife crisis. His wife (Patricia Wettig) gets so fed up with his moping that she virtually orders him to take a vacation with his buddies Ed (Bruno Kirby) and Phil (Daniel Stern); Ed, a daredevil, macho type, has arranged for them to spend two weeks on a real cattle drive out West. Mitch's wife looks him in the eye, and says earnestly, "Go and find your smile"-and, ninety minutes later, there it is, a grin as big as all outdoors. His pals pick up the odd nugget of wisdom along the trail, too. The movie alternates predictable tenderfoot gags (sore behinds, stampedes, and the like) with long, ludicrous passages of group-therapy-on-the-range. Jack Palance, as Curly, the trail boss, manages some dry, macabre comic effects, and the animals are good-they're interesting to look at, and they don't make bad jokes. You can't help sympathizing with the cattle; by the time the movie is over, you know what it feels like to be part of the herd. Also with Helen Slater. -Terrence Rafferty
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Satisfactory, yet nothing special...
One of the biggest `are you kidding me' moments in Oscar history for me has got to be Jack Palance winning the supporting Oscar for his performance in `City Slickers'. Honestly, sure, it's not a terrible performance, but can you honestly call it a performance? He has like two scenes and what he does with them is truly nothing special.

In fact the entire film can be summed up in those very words; nothing special. It's funny in parts and the moral at the end is touching, but overall there is nothing here than cannot be found in a dozen (or more) other comedies, with greater effect even. The film is littered with standard one-liners that hit some time and miss others, and while the overall effect of the film is satisfying, it is nothing extraordinary.

The film follows Mitch Robbins, a man who loves his family but is disappointed with his overall lot in life and thus becomes bogged down by what he could have been and what he wound up becoming. His job is not exciting, but life in general is pretty boring and his outlook appears rather bleak. Add to that the fact that it is his birthday and you have a middle-aged man about to hit crisis mode. That is why his wife urges him to accompany his two best friends on a cattle drive adventure that is sure to bring Mitch to terms with his life. He begrudgingly goes along, but it winds up being the best thing for him.

Billy Crystal is generally pretty funny, but it wasn't until watching this movie that I realized how generic he really is. He's funny, sure, but nothing spectacular. His performance is genuine enough, but there is no real spark behind it; nothing that makes you beg for more. Daniel Stern and Bruno Kirby, who play Mitch's best friends Phil and Ed, are actually much funnier than Crystal is here. Jack Palance has some funny lines here but overall his performance feels unfulfilled.

I know that a lot of people love this movie, and I can't say that it isn't worth a watch or two. I thought it was funny, I laughed, I enjoyed myself, but I also realize that this is not the greatest comedy known to man, and the added admiration is a bit over the top. It's a good generic comedy that ends on a nice moral, that's about it.

Like I said; nothing special.

Heads up! New Collector's Edition due out on June 3rd, 2008!
City Slickers, like most of the comedies I like best, works both as a vehicle for some pretty good humor and as a drama with heart, with something real at stake. Mitch (Billy Crystal) and his two best friends (Daniel Stern and Bruno Kirby) are each having midlife crises in their own ways. In an effort to find themselves they join a two-week dude cattle drive adventure where they do indeed surpass their former boundaries and find more about who they really are. Jack Palance plays Curly, the imposing, tough-as-cowhide, scene-stealing trail boss. The setting allows for endless jokes about cowboys and related matters, as well as some wry comments on human nature. All the principle actors are in top form.

The new DVD release of City Slickers will have a bunch of new special features:

-- audio commentary from director Ron Underwood and stars Billy Crystal and Daniel Stern (Bruno Kirby and Jack Palance are no longer living)

-- 4 featurettes
. . . "Back in the Saddle: City Slickers Revisited"
. . . "Bringing in the Script: Writing City Slickers"
. . . "A Star is Born: An Ode to Norman" (Norman being the calf Mitch adopts)
. . . "The Real City Slickers"

-- 2 deleted scenes: "Releasing the Herd" and "A New Job"

I've always enjoyed this movie and look forward to the new features, especially the commentary. Looks like it will be a worthy special edition. Four stars for this old DVD, but the new one gets five. Amazon is taking orders for the new DVD here.

almost perfect..except
I ordered a full screen version...but I was sent a widescreen version.
It was for my mom after I bought her first DVD player.
It's one of her 2 favorite movies and I don't have the heart to take it away from her now...she watches it and "Twister" at least 2 times a week. She occassionally asks me what the 2 black lines are from. She's 88 years old, God Bless Her.