GONE IN 60 SECONDS
A film review by Christopher Null
Copyright 2000 filmcritic.com
filmcritic.com
You are Nicolas Cage. After clawing your way through B-movies to
an Academy Award for Leaving Las Vegas, what do you do? You take part
after part in a progressively worsening slate of action films (pausing
only for the even worse melodrama City of Angels), bottoming out with
Snake Eyes and 8MM. Your action career is at an obvious end. So do you
go back to the drama you can pull off so well?
No! You take a role in Gone in 60 Seconds, and try to extend your
movie muscle even further! Here's a movie that's pure, unabashed
Hollywood: Randall "Memphis" Raines (Cage), in order to convince a mean
criminal to spare the life of his brother (Giovanni Ribisi), must BLOW
UP 50 cars in the next 72 hours!
Er, wait a sec. Steal. STEAL 50 cars. You see, Memphis is The
Best of The Best of L.A. car thieves. Retired, of course, but a
fabulous car thief. Naturally, kid brother follows in Memphis's
footsteps but gets himself into trouble, so Memphis has to come out of
retirement to save his butt. It's a plot so insanely stupid it can only
mean one thing: You are watching a Jerry Bruckheimer movie. (See also:
Armageddon.)
The only part of 60 Seconds less believable than Ribisi and Cage
being related is Cage and nubile vixen Angelina Jolie being former
lovers. In the film, Jolie plays the hiply-named "Sway", a likewise
retired car "boost" whose blonde dreadlocks make her both a blaring
"Look at Me!" siren during night jobs as well as a fire hazard.
Naturally, I expect Gone in 60 Seconds to appeal to audiences for
the one (and only) reason it appealed to me: Because there are lots and
lots of car chases with lots and lots of cool cars. Naturally, Memphis
and crew are not stealing 50 Hyundais. They're stealing Hummers,
Ferraris, Porsches, Aston Martins, Corvettes, T-Birds, and a mythical
1967 Shelby Mustang GT 500 that becomes Memphis's Moby Dick.
The cars are spun out, jumped, peeled out, jumped some more, and
accelerated to ungodly speeds. Surprisingly, director Dominic Sena
(credited mostly with commercials) pulls this off with a remarkably low
body count, which is admirable.
Gone in 60 Seconds is ultimately a feast for the eyes provided you
turn off your brain before you sit down to watch it. Not to mention,
you'll be surprised how hard it is not to challenge the chump in the car
next to you to a little drag race on the ride home.
RATING: **1/2
|------------------------------|
\ ***** Perfection \
\ **** Good, memorable film \
\ *** Average, hits and misses \
\ ** Sub-par on many levels \
\ * Unquestionably awful \
|------------------------------|
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Director: Dominic Sena
Producer: Jerry Bruckheimer, Mike Stenson
Writer: Scott Michael Rosenberg
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Angelina Jolie, Giovanni Ribisi, Robert Duvall,
Delroy Lindo, Will Patton, Chi McBride, Scott Caan, James Duval,
Christopher Eccleston, Trevor Goddard, Vinnie Jones, Timothy Olyphant,
William Lee Scott
Have I seen this movie: No
Will I see It: Yes
