Gone In 60 Seconds is Dominic Sena�s introduction to the summer action film tradition, and if I had seen it at the beginning of the summer, I would have said the summer was off to a good start. I am glad I did not because I would have been proven wrong.
Action films are a dime a dozen. Every year we are flooded with the same old fare: Good guy meets bad guy. They fire guns, chase each other, and blow a few buildings up. Not that I am putting this down, it is simply the way it is done. However, Gone In 60 Seconds manages to go beyond these borders with a bit of style. The story is not deep: a guy (Giovanni Ribisi) gets in with a bad bunch of people; he messes up a car heist and, so his brother (Nicholas Cage), a retired car thief, the best car thief, must come out of retirement to save his life. But, this is one of those �style over substance� films, so it does not matter.
Director Dominic Sena, the man who made Kalifornia, is a brilliant man, and I never knew that before this movie. He knows how to take a movie and make it his own. Every scene here has style, blending light and color to create a truly unique vision. He does not go overboard blinding and limits himself to the primary colors, red, yellow, and blue, from everything from the cars themselves, to the clothing, right down to the hair color. Even the lighting is kept low and in tints of blue for the night and yellow for the days. Even the cars have an essence all their own. They are not just props, but actual characters in the storyline.
Speaking of characters, the cast for the film is pretty good for an action flick. I mean, come on, how could they not be? Three Oscar winners (Cage, Angelina Jolie, and Robert Duvall), bright, up and coming stars (Ribisi, Timothy Olyphant, Scott Caan, William Lee Scott), and great, always enjoyable actors (Delroy Lindo, Chi McBride, Will Patton). Everyone is wonderful, with only Nicholas Cage dragging a bit.
Many may dismiss the story as implausible, but these people must have been expecting far too much and been incredibly picky. This is an action flick that should make filmmakers see how it should be done. Like the thefts in the film, do it with style.
