‘Kansas’ (R)

In "Kansas," Andrew McCarthy and Matt Dillon have a way of taking pages of dialogue and making it sound like ... pages of dialogue.

Directed by the Australian filmmaker David Stevens, the film tells the story of two drifters traveling through the Midwest who meet by chance in a freight car and become, first, partners in crime, then bitter enemies. The movie is structured like a row of dominoes. Doyle and Wade (Dillon and McCarthy) hop off their train in the small Kansas town where Doyle was born. On arrival, they break into a house, make a little lunch and help themselves to the liquor cabinet. Then Doyle, who says he gets "high doing the unthinkable," casually lures Wade into the town bank, waves a pistol in his face and forces him to help in a robbery.

The twist in the plot comes during the getaway, when the men are separated, and Wade, who has the money, rescues a little girl (who happens to be the governor's daughter) from a car that has plunged into a river and is rapidly sinking.

At this point the lives of the two men take divergent paths, and we're not particularly interested in following either of them. Doyle, whom the police describe as a "dabbler" -- he likes everything, car theft, breaking and entering, you name it -- is a career criminal, fresh out of prison and, true to form, begins a one-man crime wave.

In the meantime Wade, who's basically a good kid fallen on mean times, has become a national hero, with his picture on the cover of newsmagazines. But he doesn't feel like a hero so he runs away and takes a job as a day laborer at a nearby ranch.

Ranch work doesn't much interest him, though the owner's daughter -- a haughty young deb named Lori (Leslie Hope) with crinkly brunette tresses and permanently attached pearls -- does. Soon there's some rather frantic lovemaking in a barn, accompanied by some rather vague talk about the future.

Doyle finds a girlfriend too, though she doesn't wear tennis whites and has the unfortunate habit of talking about other men while she's making love to him. Nor does she have a name -- she's referred to in the credits only as the Prostitute Drifter -- but when Doyle presents her with the Most Wanted poster of himself, she rips off the movie's only winner: "Rat sumthin niice on it and I'll send it to mah parents." (Kyra Sedgewich, who plays the part in high trampy style, is the film's only pleasure.)

Producer George Litto says the film has "a great deal to say about America." Like what -- that it's teeming with rotten actors?

This film doesn't say a great deal about anything. Or even a little about nothing. At his lowest ebb, Wade says to Lori, "I'm involved in something that got out of hand and I don't want to talk about it."

Took the words right out of my mouth.

"Kansas" contains some adult language and situations.