Dennis Quaid rescues Meg Ryan from a giant cake in a moody, 1993 Western/noir called Flesh and Bone. It's a very pleasant movie to watch. Its pleasantness, in fact, overshadows its dramatic material and the biggest problem it has is in trying to concoct a dramatic climax.
Quaid plays Arlis, a quiet fellow who earns a living via vending machines he owns in various places across the beautiful desolation of Texas. One day, he sees a young woman pass out after jumping out of a cake for a bunch of guys. So he takes her home and gets her cleaned up.
She turns out to be a manic pixie dream girl called Kay (Ryan). She walks around in her underwear a lot, even though the cups of her bra each have "Boom" printed on them (two people misread it as "Boo"). She teases him for how quiet he is but he remains a gentleman. Quaid and Ryan have such good chemistry and they look so good in the drowsy Texas atmosphere I'd have been satisfied if the movie just petered out. The wardrobe has a pretty consistent cornflower blue/off-white colour palette and it's always easy on the eyes.
But James Caan and Gwyneth Paltrow are also in the movie, playing a couple thieves. They show up at Arlis' door because Cann plays his father. He asks his son to help him get some buckshot out of his back.
Paltrow shines in the minor role and Caan hams it up delightfully. The screenwriters obviously decided there needed to be some kind of big drama to justify all the moodiness so they cooked up a showdown between Caan and Quaid that doesn't really make sense. Though it does make it clear why Arlis feels he can't be with Kay, giving the story some nicely tragic undertones. But I'm not sure it was strictly necessary.
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