Only a director with Francis Ford Coppola's hubris would tweak and re-release one of his worst films in the hopes that critics and audiences would embrace it 21 years later. This quasi-musical romantic comedy was bad then, when it at least had the distinction of being technologically innovative (it was the first mainstream feature-length movie digitally shot and edited, filmed entirely on Coppola's own sound stages). It's even worse now, when its perms and polyester mark it as dated as its sexual politics.

Only Teri Garr, Oscar-nominated for Tootsie the same year this debacle came out, benefits from hindsight. She plays Frannie, a Las Vegas travel agent who's been living with Hank (Frederic Forrest) for five years when they break up over a Fourth of July weekend. Of course, this being the era of free love, their way of re-evaluating their relationship is to sleep with other people (an insanely sexy Raul Julia and a jail-baiting Nastassja Kinski, respectively).

Hank is basically a schmuck and Forrest's hangdog demeanour only makes him less appealing, but Garr has an earthy self-possession that carries her through some of Coppola's most misogynist moments, like when Hank finds Frannie in her lover's hotel room and carts her off over his shoulder, naked and screeching, while Japanese tourists snap photos. Even in 1982, it's doubtful this scene passed for funny.

Besides using advanced technology for no special purpose, Coppola also wastes the still-functioning vocal chords of Tom Waits on songs that are supposed to underscore the characters' feelings, if they had any worth underscoring. The fake Las Vegas sets do effectively underscore how fake Hank and Frannie's relationship seems, though.