Thelma and Louise handily takes up Daisy's themes of female adventure and the social sanctions that disallow such activity as inherently subversive. Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon give the performances of their careers in this moral fable of women forced into unlawful actions for self-preservation, and released thereby from the strictures that had kept them in line. Ridley Scott (only a man could ever have got this project green-lighted in Hollywood) beats the odds to give us a new model of woman outlaw. What's astounding is how much criticism this fairly mild revenge-escape caper film aroused, thereby revealing how little it takes for men to see woman as scary and proving women's double bind in the U.S. today: cry victim and Paglia will bash you, but fight back and the cops will. As with Daisies, a fantasy ending finds a handy exit that sustains the power of the narrative without totally abandoning the rules broken along the way.-B Ruby Rich