SOURCE: A review of Kansas City, in Sight and Sound, Vol. 6, No. 12, December, 1996, pp. 49-50.

In the following excerpt, Boyd calls Altman's Kansas City "aimless film-making."

"Kansas City here I come!" These are the words of Big Joe Turner's classic rhythm and blues song 'Going to Kansas City', and it's also the mission of film-making elder statesman Robert Altman in this homage to his hometown. Set in a colourful 30s world, in which the city is an oasis for the political party bosses, gangsters and jazz musicians who ran the show, Kansas City is trademark Altman, a series of interconnected episodes all linked to one central theme: the uses and abuses of power.

The film centres on the evolving relationship between two social opposites, telegraph operator Blondie O'Hara (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and her rich, laudanum-soaked hostage Carolyn Stilton (Miranda Richardson). They wander in and out of situations: the...