Idaho Transfer

'Idaho Transfer' marks Peter Fonda's second experiment as a director. It is a hippie science-fiction film that explores another idea of time traveling. The premise is quite intriguing - scientists accidentally discover the time travel and that some mysterious ecological catastrophe wipe out the human civilization not so far in the future. Time travel have some side effects - adults develop kidney hemorrhage, so they die soon after the experience. After that the scientists decide to send only teenagers into the future to build new civilization. Soon, the government takes over the project and time travel machines are turned off, trapping a group of project members into bleak future. The story includes couple of devilish plot twists that I don't want to spoil here as they are actually good ones.

Unfortunately the interesting ideas are executed sloppily, as the screenplay is underdeveloped and director quite doesn't manage to tie everything together leaving many blanks unfilled. As most of the cast were not professional actors the acting is uneven and occasionally wooden, but it is compensated by gorgeous cinematography and scenery shots.

By far not the greatest science-fiction movie by the icon of counterculture and indi filmmaking, but original and interesting enough to give it a shot.

A successful time-travel project, facilitated with the help of a group of students, is sabotaged by the government when it is revealed that a non-specified disaster(possibly apocalyptic in scale) is mankind's looming fate. The quest for conclusive details in this future event yields a most unexpected outcome.

IDAHO TRANSFER is a curious little item made under obvious financial constraint by some of the era's more adventurous personages on the indie film-making fringe. Though mostly off-target, it does benefit from capable direction, an intriguing premise, and a clever, trenchant conclusion.

This isn't your run-of-the-mill science-fiction story, nor is it a wonderwork of special effects wizardry. It's a subdued film...an earthy, phlegmatic "anti-Hollywood" undertaking which had the potential to materialize as something greater than it is. Sadly, the feeling is more of indifference than enthusiasm at the pith of this project. By and large, IDAHO TRANSFER feels like a vague transparency of what it intended to be...the film's concrete-minimalist iconography is utterly de-trop, as is the intentional and somewhat dissociative impassivity of the cast. They approach their roles with, presumably, veristic inspiration...that method of "non-acting" which aims to italicize a mien of hyper-realism. The poker-faced performances in play could only be called "realistic" if reality was a world full of freshly lobotomized potheads with a collective Asperger-ish countenance. There's an irony here, however...oddly enough, the aforementioned shortcomings also give rise to a unique atmospheric carriage of cold austerity. It is this air of encircling paucity and lost, lonely detachment which gives IDAHO TRANSFER an interesting singularity of sorts. It's a misfire, more than not...but to its credit, it's a misfire comparable to little else.

5/10.

I saw this movie many years ago completely by mistake (the video store had got it mixed up with another film called Deranged) and it has haunted me ever since.

After years of searching for a copy I finally located it on Ebay. On watching it again I was surprised to find it had lost none of its hypnotic power. I was also surprised to find it was directed by Peter Fonda.

The story concerns a group of youngsters who go into the future to study the earth, post apocalypse. A number of incidents result in them getting stuck in the future, left with the notion of restarting civilisation.

The film itself is unbelievably stark in its presentation, this is mainly due to the restrictions of a clearly minuscule budget (the sets in their entirety include a road, a corridor, a room and a desert plain). There is very little warmth from the story, sets or characters, the script is fairly cheesy and the special effects are pretty poor.

Despite of this the film someone creates a hold over you. Despite its flaws I never once considered turning it off, I sat, hypnotised as the scenes unfolded. Ever had a dream from which you've woken up slightly troubled, though you're not sure why? This is the film version of one of those dreams.

It's hard to explain in writing. If you ever come across a copy of this film I urge you to see it. You may not like it but I guarantee you'll not forget it too soon.

and I've not even mentioned the ending...!

As other people have commented, there is something mysteriously appealing about this movie. At first it looks like a bit of hippy fun for director Peter Fonda, and probably was. I purchased it for $3 dollars in a second hand video shop for it's 'Tron' like front cover. I then found no computer special effects in the movie at all. My copy is called 'Nuclear Escape', and looking on the net, i found it to have been called derranged also. Intriguingly odd.

The film is unusually well written, one of the more thoughtful sci fi films. Esp if you get frustrated by bloated excuses for FX and empty attempts to be "gritty."

The problem obviously is, virtually everything else about the film. Poor direction, no budget, unknown actors who are a mix of needing a chance to show what they can do, and should never act again.

You find yourself constantly wishing this were remade with a better director with a budget. But it's still interesting enough that I watched to the very end, wanting to see what happens.