Gone in 60 Seconds (2000)

Which is better? Watching a movie with a car chase or watching porn? Guys like cars. We like to see cars go fast. We like to see cars crash. There is something about the speed and the movement of it that makes our adrenaline rush. Cars are a drug. Cars or sex? That's a tough call.

Car chase films have always been popular. One of the best of all time is the classic "Bullit" with Steve McQueen. It's got one of the best car chases ever. And "The French Connection," that's a great film. And, for those guys who were smart enough to see it, "Ronin," a Robert Deniro film of a couple years ago, had some of the best car chases ever filmed. These films make "Gone in 60 Seconds" seem like child's play.

What the film does have is a plethora of movie stars, rather than the cars as stars. Sure, the cars look cool, but these modern signs of unattainable wealth and modern corruption are outshined by the movie stars. This film is thigh deep in modern American dreams. These aren't "actors," they're "stars" who make billions of dollars on every picture. These cars aren't the cars we can buy, they're the cars of drug dealers and Wall street barons and multimillionaires - and movie stars! It's the Hollywood elite dangling the unattainable carrot in front of the middle class, daring us to become thieves, like Hollywood stars or car boosters. Making us murderously envious.

There are no actors in the film. No one acts here. Nick Cage plays a parody of Nick Cage. Robert Duvall shows up, gets his paycheck and leaves. Giovanni Ribisi hides behind a beard. It's a sad and boring turn from one of America's most promising young actors. Angelina Jolie hides behind her breasts and lips. Delroy Lindo has fun playing a knock-off of "Shaft," a role that instead went to Samuel L. Jackson (a more bankable star). The others are simply little fishes in the big pond, playing with the big boys. My favorite of these is James Duval who seems to always play the same guy, that gay kid from the Gregg Araki movies. He, at least, has something to offer a guy like me. I like his Keanu knock-off goofiness and his continuing ambiguous sexuality. He gets to pal around with his cutest co-star since Nathan Bexton in "Nowhere," William Lee Scott. When Scott gets shot, Ribisi insist on accompanying him to the hospital. Hmmm.... The underlying subtext for me on all this, anyway, is that they are gay. But the film also has a stupid subtext about how Ribisi will not abandon his friends, as he feels Cage, playing his brother, has abandoned him. It's all rather dumb really. The plot here, what little there is of it, is ludicrous.

"Gone in 60 Seconds" has one truly great car stunt. That's it. It has great music too. Director Dominic Sena proves that he can keep the adrenaline flowing when given action scenes. He couples them with compelling and interesting modern music that really makes them snap. But when the film turns to story, to drama, it drops like the tranny in an Edsel. (Damn, I promised myself I wouldn't resort to car analogies). It's dead in the water. It's out of gas. You sit in the dark and wait for the next car chase. Or for the next glimpse of your favorite star.

Note: Also with Scott Caan, Grace Zabriskie, T.J. Cross, Will Patton, Timothy Olyphant, Christopher Eccleston, and Arye Gross.

A remake of the 1974 low-budget cult classic by H.B. Halicki.

Report Card

Script: F

Acting: D

Cinematography\Lighting: C

Special Effects\Make Up: B+

Music: A+

Final Grade: C