Michael Almereyeda (Experimenter, 2015) wrote the shapeshifting screenplay, his first, from a story by Lloyd Fonvielle. It concerns the erotic life of Sam Treadwell (David Andrews) in the faraway year of 2017, who is obsessed with his android lover Cherry 2000 (Pamela Gidley). When she short circuits after some vigorous lovemaking in soap suds, Treadwell is bereft. In this future, the manufacturing sector has collapsed and there is no way to revive Cherry except for breaking in to a long-defunct factory and finding an old model. This is what the new black market job of "tracker" is for, so Treadwell hires "E" Johnson (Griffith) to find him an identical model of Cherry that he can load the original's personality onto (saved on an optical disc).
While the economy has tanked, the bureaucracy has expanded and sexual encounters require contracts before consummation (a young Laurence Fishburne appears as a slick lawyer closing one of these deals), leading many lazy Americans to prefer to lay with androids instead to avoid the hassle. So, Treadwell is no hero, just a lonely guy far too attached to his toy robot. (Its exploration of artificial intelligence anticipates Almereyeda's work on Marjorie Prime, 2017.) Johnson is the real swashbuckler here, an Indiana Jones of post-industrial collapse poaching what's left of America's manufacturing might before it disappears into rubble.
Griffith appears here right before she shot into superstardom with Working Girl (1988) and carries the film as a bazooka-shooting bad ass with blazing red hair. She is supported by Ben Johnson, who gives a grizzled turn as "Six Fingered Jake", a veteran of the Nevada no man's land where most of the film takes place. The remarkable cast also includes Brion James, Harry Carey Jr. and, as the madman of the badlands, Tim Thomerson. Thomerson plays Lester, a cheery sociopath who executes trackers by bow and arrow and whose desert outpost has been modeled like a 1950s hotel (the production design by John Jay Moore is striking throughout).
Director Steve De Jarnatt was brought on late into the process. On the audio commentary of the Blu-ray, De Jarnatt claims that Irwin Kershner was originally attached to direct. After he dropped out, De Jarnatt was brought on with little to no prep time, and he felt like he was catching up throughout the entirety of the shoot. The film navigates a tricky tone, especially when it comes to the relationship between Treadwell and Johnson. Treadwell is initially depicted as a pathetic loner, but has to earn Johnson's respect as they proceed on their absurd quest for a new Cherry. It's difficult to transition Treadwell from the butt of jokes to last act hero, but everyone does their level best, and the stunt team pulls off some impressive feats, especially when their escape car gets dangled over the Hoover Dam with an industrial strength magnet.
But no matter the film's idiosyncratic strengths, everyone involved was eager to move on. Steve De Jarnatt had Miracle Mile (1988) to promote, which he had written and directed, and Griffith was appearing in Something Wild (1986) as well as Working Girl. In that same Los Angeles Times piece that interviewed Pressman, Griffith's reps responded to queries about Cherry 2000 with, "Don't you have anything better to write about?" But time heals all wounds, and today Cherry 2000 looks like a wildly creative experiment that could never be made in the Hollywood of today.
By R. Emmet Sweeney
