As a frequent guest on talk shows, podcasts, and festival Q&As, Quentin Tarantino has a bold opinion about seemingly every movie. Whether laudatory or critical, the Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill writer-director provokes the film community with his out-of-the-box takes that defy “normal” taste. As the unofficial voice of cinephilia in print and oral form, Tarantino’s takes quickly become aggregated online and inspire a wave of revisionism surrounding a beloved classic or an under-the-radar gem. When observing Kevin Costner’s filmography, the average person is drawn to The Untouchables, Field of Dreams, and Dances With Wolves, but it was Fandango, Kevin Reynolds’ road trip dramedy featuring a pre-stardom Costner that Tarantino called “one of the best directorial debuts in the history of cinema.” While unassuming from the outset, the 1985 film is an essential arc in Costner’s career, as it teamed him up with one of his most vital collaborators.

‘Fandango’ Formed the Partnership Between Kevin Costner and Kevin Reynolds
Image via Warner Bros.

With the recent release of the first chapter of Horizon: An American Saga, Costner’s audacious four-part Western epic that may or may not be completed, many have been reexamining the actor-director’s filmography. Much like Tarantino, Costner found unprecedented creative autonomy from the machinations of the studio system. Even if his ambition seems heedlessly oblivious to audience interests, he never shies away from his bold artistic instincts. With a career so expansive and dynamic, it is easy to skip past Fandango, a film that laid the groundwork for the storied figure we know today. The film follows five friends and impending college graduates from the University of Texas in 1971 who embark on one last hurrah, a road trip across the Mexican border amid the fears of an uncertain future in their prospective careers or the Vietnam War draft. Starring alongside Judd Nelson and Sam Robards, Fandango is a story about college friends convening to reflect on the past that Costner actually got to appear in, as he was notoriously cut from The Big Chill.

Kevin Reynolds, the newcomer writer and director of Fandango, would play a crucial role in Kevin Costner’s career, for better or worse. On the one hand, Reynolds directed Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, one of Costner’s most financially successful movies to date, but on the flip side, he directed the notorious folly, Waterworld. The chaos of the expensive and bloated production of the film strained their friendship, as Reynolds walked away from the project during post-production due to Costner undermining his vision. Decades later, Costner and Reynolds patched things together and reunited for Hatfields & McCoys, the hit History Channel series that gave Costner a foothold in television before Yellowstone. Reynolds also did uncredited second-unit work for Costner’s most triumphant success, Dances With Wolves, as he aided the direction of the film’s most powerful sequence in the buffalo hunt.

The Impact That ‘Fandango’ Had on a Young Quentin Tarantino

Before Reynolds was a collaborator and on-and-off friend of Costner, he was a young and exciting filmmaker who drew the eye of Quentin Tarantino. In a July 1994 Vanity Fair feature story on the influential writer-director leading up to Pulp Fiction’s release, Tarantino’s obsessive cinephilia is documented as he rattles off various movie scenes that have stuck with him over the years. Speaking a mile per minute, he makes one audacious assertion, where he claimed “Kevin Reynolds is going to be the Stanley Kubrick of his decade.” This is a response to his overwhelming fondness for Fandango, a film Tarantino saw five times in theaters. “Fandango is one of the best directorial debuts in the history of cinema,” he said. The film left a seismic imprint on the budding filmmaker, as he began dressing and talking like Costner’s Gardner Barnes character. “I wanted to wear a filthy tuxedo and sleep and piss and barf and drink and sweat in a car going over the desert,” Tarantino proudly said. He felt privileged to experience the magic of Costner at an indie level before he vaulted to the mainstream.

A road-trip dramedy in Fandango doesn’t seem like Tarantino’s cup of tea on the outside, but buried beneath the blood-soaked vengeance and daring escapades of his films are hangout movies, evident by the rapport between Jules and Vincent in Pulp Fiction and Rick Dalton and Cliff Booth in Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood. His adoration for the hangout movies by Howard Hawks outlines his appreciation for character-based storytelling. Tarantino initially cast Costner as ruthless plantation owner Calvin Candie’s (Leonardo DiCaprio) right-hand man in Django Unchained, but the actor dropped out to pursue Hatfields & McCoys. Similar to Tarantino giving John Travolta a facelift for his screen persona, the unforeseen take on Costner would have thrived under Tarantino’s writing and direction.

Fandango is currently available to rent or buy on Prime Video in the U.S.

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