Weeds is a 1987 American drama film directed by John D. Hancock, and starring Nick Nolte, Ernie Hudson, Lane Smith, Mark Rolston, William Forsythe, Joe Mantegna, J.J. Johnston and Rita Taggart. The screenplay concerns a prison inmate who writes a play that catches the attention of a visiting reporter.
Contents
Plot
Lee Umstetter is incarcerated in San Quentin for armed robbery, serving "life without possibility" (with no chance of parole). After two suicide attempts, Lee begins to read books from the prison library. He attends a performance of Waiting for Godot given for the prisoners and is deeply moved. He begins to write plays about imprisonment and then stages them, too.
One is a social-protest musical extravaganza about life in the penitentiary. It attracts visitors and earns Lee the regard of a San Francisco theatre reviewer who persuades the governor to release him.
Lee organises an acting troupe made up of former convicts: a shoplifter, a murderer, an embezzler, a pimp, a flasher, and others.
Lee's work doesn't make the same impact outside the prison as it did inside. Touring in a camper with no money, the men are torn by impulses to revert to their former criminal behavior.
Cast
Nick Nolte as Lee Umstetter
Cyro Baptista as Bass Guitar
William Forsythe as Burt "The Booster"
Ernie Hudson as Bagdad
J.J. Johnston as Lazarus
Joe Mantegna as Carmine
Mark Rolston as Dave
Essex Smith as Vocalist #1
Lane Smith as Claude
Orville Stoeber as Lead Guitar
Rita Taggart as Lillian Bingington
John Toles-Bey as Navarro
Sam Waymon as Vocalist #2
Anne Ramsey as Mom Unstetter
Ray Reinhardt as Dad Unstetter
Reception
The film received mixed reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.
Film critic Pauline Kael of The New Yorker observed, "The film is about their efforts to become professional men of the theatre. It's about the ways in which working together changes them and the ways in which it doesn't."
The film had a strong opening weekend, but failed to recoup its costs. The film did well on VHS.