Palpably and effortlessly breezy star-power aside, there's not much to recommend in Robert Benton's Nadine. It's a 1950's period piece / romantic comedy / chase movie / farce / thriller amalgam that tries to hit too many targets throughout its scant running time, which results in a scattershot movie kept afloat by only the talents of the two lead actors.

And those lead actors are Jeff Bridges and Kim Basinger. As a soon-to-be-divorced and perpetually squabbling couple, Bridges and Basinger strike an immediate and smoothly enjoyable chemistry -- and then the movie comes along and does all it can to bury two fine performances in a morass of generic cliche and dusty familiarity.

Basinger plays the title character, a doe-eyed and lovely Texas lass who, not long ago, posed for some racy pics and now demands that they be returned. The photographer ends up dead, Nadine grabs the wrong envelope from his desk, and pretty soon there's a trio of gun-toting bad guys who want what Nadine's got ... and I'm not talking about naked pictures.

It seems that Nadine has unwittingly absconded with the villain's ultra-important map, an asset so secret and so valuable that these Texas-fried troublemakers are willing to kill Nadine to get it. Knowing that she has nowhere else to turn, Nadine enlists the assistance of her estranged husband Vernon -- and together the ever-bickering pair of goofballs spend the rest of the film running from baddies, dodging rattlesnakes, and hanging precariously from ladders suspended across rooftops.

It's not nearly as thrilling as it sounds.

But there's still a warm and rascally personality to Nadine that makes it worthy of a visit. Aside from some great banter-teamwork between Bridges and Basinger, the background is populated by folks like Rip Torn, Jerry Stiller, and that frequent scene-stealer known as Ms. Glenne Headly.

Plus the flick manages to move forward at a brisk clip, the 1950's Texas setting is a fairly fun place to visit, and (again) the two leads do strike a charming chord when they're on the screen together. Frankly I'd say the movie's worthy of a weekend rental just for Bridges' work alone, but that's just geek talk from a lifelong Bridges admirer. Your own mileage may vary.

The DVD

Video: The film is presented in a widescreen (1.85:1) anamorphic transfer and, all things considered, the flick looks pretty darn solid. There's some clear grain in some of the darker sequences, but nothing too unpleasant.

Audio: Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo, which serves the chat-heavy movie in adequate fashion.

Extras: A collection of trailers for 13 Going on 30, Hitch, I Dreamed of Africa, Blind Date, and a bunch of Sony's "80's Classics."

Final Thoughts

Nadine is an innocuous little wisp of a romantic comedy, spiced up with some chases, escapes, and even a few gunfights. But the real asset is the combined screen appeal of Jeff Bridges & Kim Basinger, and I suspect that only hardcore fans of the two actors will be the ones who bother to pick the flick up.