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Hampton Fancher's The Minus Man is a methodical, chilling excursion into the mind of a serial killer. Not much different from the better known Henry: Portrait of a serial killer, this movie is not a comfortable motion picture to sit through. The lack of overt violence and gore deepens the sense of unease. Watching Vann's tale unfold, we should be gripped by revulsion; instead, there's a strange fascination. Like Henry this movie takes us into an alien world and strands us there for a little while by way of showing things from the killer's point of view. This movie may not invite emotional participation, but it gives its audience much to ponder.

Screenplay has Clint Eastwood as a beer-guzzling, country music-loving truck driver who picks up spare change as a barroom brawler. When Sondra Locke, an elusive singer Eastwood meets at The Palomino Club, takes off for Colorado, Eastwood packs his pickup truck in pursuit. Behind him are a motorcycle gang and an LA cop. Both have been victims of Eastwood's fists. They want revenge. Traveling with Eastwood is Geoffrey Lewis and Beverly D'Angelo, whom the two meet on the road. There's also an orangutan. His name is Clyde. Eastwood won him a few years back in a fight. He goes everywhere with Eastwood. He drinks beer, finds a one-night stand at a zoo in New Mexico and cheers on his friend. Huge hit back in the day though panned critically.

The Ladies Man offers the latest piece of compelling evidence about the difficulty involved in transforming a five or ten minute comedy sketch into a full-length motion picture. No matter how inspired the source material (and it would be a stretch to call anything from the last 10 years of Saturday Night Live "inspired"), stretching something to ten times its intended length is going to create a thin, warped result (imagine Monty Python's "Dead Parrot Sketch" dragged out to 90 minutes). The Ladies Man is like that. There are times when it's possible to see the director and screenwriters' desperation as they unsuccessfully try to find something - anything - to keep the momentum from flagging and the movie from sputtering to a halt.