‘T Bone N Weasel’: Fun, Thoughtful Buddy Film

“T Bone N Weasel” reworks the buddy movie genre--in this case the misadventures of two drifters in the South--to produce a surprisingly jaunty comedy enlivened by the flavorful duo of Gregory Hines and Christopher Lloyd (on TNT at 5, 7 and 9 p.m.).

Two bums named T Bone (Hines) and Weasel (Lloyd) endure racism and other human scourges in a backwoods odyssey that is almost picaresque in structure and tone.

Beneath the humor and outrageous encounters with a car salesman (Rip Torn), a small-town politician (Ned Beatty) and a host of other swamp-bred creatures, the streetwise Hines and the roughneck Lloyd, without stressing it, personify the complexity of friendship in a hostile world.

Writer Jon Klein’s dialogue is unusually rich for a TV movie, full of slangy, down-home idioms. And director Lewis Teague digs under the movie’s red-clay, North Carolina surfaces to come up with gritty, roadside glimpses of the outsider and the homeless. In effect, the production is a nice balancing act between comedy and commentary.

Adapted from a play by Klein, “T Bone N Weasel” originally appeared on the stage of the Victory Theatre in Burbank five years ago in a cinematic, 28-scene/blackout format.

The transition to television is an uncommonly happy one because the movie remains true to the theme and even the style of the stage play. It’s also one of the rare instances in which a show developed in a small L.A.-area theater actually made it all the way to the movies.--RAY LOYND