Running to almost 1800 performances on Broadway, this Sixties hippie musical about a Vietnam draftee and his brush with a group of New York 'flower children' was filmed 12 years later - too late to be relevant and too early for nostalgia value. The result: it flopped. But there are things to enjoy, notably the inventive choreography of Twyla Tharp which includes a 'horse ballet' performed by mounted police at a Central Park 'be-in', the energy of the performers and superior photography by Miroslav Ondricek. Czech director Milos Forman, fresh from his success with One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, was a surprise choice to helm this very American film, but he did a fair job, even if at times he overfills the screen with movement. The second half, if you're still awake, is better than the first, with the show's one genuinely and timelessly funny number, Black Boys/White Boys, coming just in time to jerk our attention to the plot working its one original twist.

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