It seems that you can't go wrong with a beauty pageant movie set in a quirky small town these days. Last summer's Drop Dead Gorgeous was a consistently funny if somewhat far-fetched sleeper about a group of teenaged girls competing viciously in a small-town beauty contest. Happy Texas also hails from 1999, and like Gorgeous, it's consistently funny (though less wacky), generally unbelievable, and centered around a beauty pageant.
What Happy Texas has that Gorgeous doesn't is criminals. When two crooks steal an RV and make a getaway to Texas, they're mistaken for two gay beauty pageant coaches who are supposed to train a group of five-year-old girls to become contestant winners, so they can represent their hometown in the state pageant.
The plot of HT starts out somewhat slowly, but picks up once the two criminals -- neither of whom are wholly bad people -- get stuck in the role of lovers. The highlights of the movie were, for me, seeing how each of the two men got accustomed to the parts they had to play. When one of them has to teach the young girls a new routine, he initially yells at the kids and can only think to play a sing-along on the piano. Eventually, though, he develops a very humorous (yet successful) dance routine. But he never loses his rough-around-the-edges ways, like when he leads the girls in prayer before the pageant and asks God to punish the judges in a very violent manner if the girls lose, meanwhile cussing like the jailbird he is.
Otherwise, there's some unrequited love, some requited lust, an RV/truck/car chase, and an upbeat resolution to the sticky mess these guys have entangled themselves in. All in all, it's a fun movie, a good rent for a rainy night. Happy Texas isn't a classic, but it's enjoyable. It doesn't beat you over the head with any messages, and its tender moments are followed quickly by humor. It's not that tender moments (or TMs, as my boyfriend calls them) are a bad thing. I just don't think this movie is strong enough to handle them that well. Most importantly, Happy Texas won't make you fall asleep while you're watching it in a prone position on the couch late at night. In rental world, that equals a good catch.
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