Cast: Nicolas Cage, Angelina Jolie, Giovanni Ribisi, Robert Duvall, Delroy Lindo, Will Patton, Chi McBride, Scott Caan, Christopher Eccleston, Vinnie Jones, Timothy Olyphant
Director: Dominic Sena
Producers: Jerry Bruckheimer, Mike Stenson
Screenplay: Scott Rosenberg
Cinematography: Paul Cameron
Music: Trevor Rabin
U.S. Distributor: Touchstone Pictures
With Mission: Impossible II, director John Woo showed how the combination of tight editing and filmmaking flamboyance can transform a seemingly ordinary action film into something genuinely exhilarating. Gone In 60 Seconds illustrates the opposite: that bland direction and lifeless action sequences can turn a supposedly exciting experience into a humdrum affair. Instead of offering a heady adrenaline-and-testosterone cocktail, this motion picture, which is plagued by a lack of innovation and a needlessly protracted running length, may cause some viewers to nod off during the proceedings.
Car chases rarely do much for me. They're easily the most boring staple available to the action director, and it's a rare filmmaker who brings enough novelty to one to make it even moderately interesting. For Gone In 60 Seconds, a movie about car thieves that features about a half-dozen car chases, it's especially important to do something rousing, yet the approach employed by director Dominic Sena (Kalifornia) is no better than adequate. His car chases are all filmed with technical aptitude, but they don't get the blood pumping. They are routine and by-the-book, and, as a result, boring. Even the sight of Nicolas Cage driving backwards at a high speed on a crowded road isn't especially interesting or exciting. We know there's no danger. He's not going to die. Even when he performs an act of aerial derring-do that would give Evel Knievel pause, we're more likely to burst out laughing than hold our breaths.
Like all Jerry Bruckheimer films, Gone In 60 Seconds has a slick look but no soul. The characters are paper thin and tearing at the edges, the actors do little more than recite their lines, and the numerous action sequences are aimed squarely at teenage boys. One wonders if car crashes and explosions have replaced the sight of naked women in the average 13-year old male's wet dreams. Apparently Bruckheimer thinks so. (To hedge his bets, however, he hired Angelina Jolie and shows a quick shot of a nameless actress' breasts.)
The story is borrowed from that of the small budget 1974 feature of the same name, which was written and directed by H.B. Halicki (who died in an accident while filming a sequel). Since I, like almost everyone else who will watch this movie, haven't seen the original, I can't give a blow-by-blow comparison. However, if the 1974 version follows essentially the same plot as the new edition, there's no reason for it to have been remade (not that such logic has ever stopped Hollywood). This isn't the kind of story that cries out for a big-budget treatment complete with A-list actors and a major summer release slot. In fact, if Bruckheimer hadn't been involved, I would have expected the movie to reach screens during the dead zone of February or March.
Randall "Memphis" Raines (Nicolas Cage) has returned to Southern California after a long absence. The legendary car thief, who went into retirement six years ago, is called back by one of his old buddies, Atley Jackson (Will Patton, cast against type as a good guy), when Raines' younger brother, Kip (Giovanni Ribisi), screws up a car robbery and allows the cops to impound a local crime lord's entire stash. In order to satisfy Kip's debt to society's dark underbelly, Raines must come out of retirement and steal 50 cars in three days. Otherwise, the generic villain with a British accent (Christopher Eccleston), will exact payment in blood. So, despite being dogged by a determined police officer (Delroy Lindo), Raines assembles his old crew - Otto (Robert Duvall), Donny (Chi McBride), Sphinx (Vinnie Jones), and Sway (Jolie) - and gets to work preparing for a single night of mayhem.
Even more dull than the car chases are the so-called "character building" moments that seek, often through laughably bad dialogue, to convince us that there are genuine characters inhabiting the bodies of Nicolas Cage, Angelina Jolie, et al. It's not any more successful here than it has been in any of Bruckheimer's other action extravaganzas (Con Air, Armageddon, etc.), and all it really accomplishes is to slow down the pace. As for the actors, they speak the silly words because they're on hand to pick up pay checks. Nicolas Cage, who can be very good when constrained within a limited range (as in Leaving Las Vegas, for which he won an Oscar), is out of his depth in the role of the action hero. Angelina Jolie speaks her six or seven lines with relish. Robert Duvall manages to keep a straight face. The only two who acquit themselves admirably are Delroy Lindo, who can add a touch of class to just about any part (also see his work in the recent Romeo Must Die), and Vinnie Jones (of Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels), who plays the violent, silent type. Meanwhile, the most annoying participant award does not go to Giovanni Ribisi (although he makes a run at it). Instead, it is deservedly earned by Timothy Olyphant, whose turn as Lindo's partner had me praying that someone would shoot him.
Gone In 60 Seconds delivers what it advertises - lots of cars (they easily upstage the actors), a souped-up music score, slick production values, and a fair number of generic action sequences. Everything is overdone to the point of being ludicrous; cars in Bruckheimer films don't just catch fire - they explode spectacularly, typically taking a few adjacent vehicles along with them. And car crashes are always loud and violent - but everyone in Gone In 60 Seconds wears their seat belts, because they walk away from the accidents. For action to quicken the pulse, see Mission: Impossible II. For action to dull the senses, Gone In 60 Seconds will do the job. (And I am not going to end this review with a remark about the relationship between the title and the movie's deserved theatrical life span - that's too obvious a jibe.)
© 2000 James Berardinelli