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For that 17-year-old fellow, what wouldn't there be to like? The rushing mixture of sights and sounds plays like the anthem of youthful rebellion. The screen spills with dozens of classic cars, new and old, gleaming in their majestic glory. There are more Ferraris and 60's muscle cars than you can shake a gearshift at. The pounding, supercharged music, blended with the high-revving pandemonium of big horsepower engines, would prove an intoxicant. And the picaresque pals determined to acquire all this beautiful hardware at the expense of their rightful owners, with sobriquets like Memphis, Sway and Sphinx, might also capture our imaginations.
So a bunch of us, also with nicknames like Moose, Bear and Skip, would arrange an outing to the Bijou for just this sort of testosterone boost. This was before one had to worry if a film's cholesterol count was PG, PG-13 or R. But inevitably the movie was really little more than a catalyst. Rather, it was the ingredients of the adventure that would coalesce to make for a night of camaraderie and perhaps some lasting memories.
We grew up on Hollywood and television. Thus we'd surmise that somewhere in the plot machinations a built-in escape route would allow us to rationalise rooting for head honcho Nicolas Cage and his retinue of slick anti-heroes. Surely they wouldn't allow crime to pay. A plot twist would exonerate them as well as us. We knew that. We knew everything.
It's unfortunate. Possessing no time machine with which to view director Dominic Sena's update of former stunt man H.B. Halicki's 1974 picture by the same name, I was unable to appreciate it on that level. Still, there's something to said for the audio-visual experience producer Bruckheimer (Con Air) unleashes in his latest assault on the senses. But skip the story and just look at the shiny pictures if you want to preserve any semblance of self-respect.
It's the old outlaw forced-out-of-retirement ploy. The absurd tale of a reformed car thief extraordinaire (Nicolas Cage) who is blackmailed into stealing 50 exotics could apply for plot welfare. You see, if Cage's "Memphis" Raines doesn't do as car theft ring leader Raymond Calitri (Christopher Eccleston) says, then the bad man will flatten Memphis's little brother Kip (Giovanni Ribisi) in one of those junkyard car crushers. Kip made the mistake of emulating his older brother without benefit of talent, let alone brains. Now he's the head goon's bait.
Screenwriter Scott Michael Rosenberg tries to shove a sub-plot about sibling rivalry/brotherly love down our collective throat. Talk about pretence and chutzpah. But it almost seems inspired compared to the half-hearted love angle also foisted upon us. Memphis and Sara "Sway" Wayland (Angelina Jolie), a Ferrari mechanic and former sweetheart, stopped sharing the same ratchet set when they couldn't agree on a timetable for going straight. Of course, this just may be their chance to patch things up. It's The Magnificent Seven do grand theft auto when Memphis reunites the old gang for one last big job.
While the description of Mr. Rosenberg's boilerplate screenplay takes up only two paragraphs here, viewers who plan to see Gone In Sixty Seconds solely for its action quotient should be warned that the inanity sprawls throughout. And if there were an agency that fought cruelty to actors, they'd surely have to prosecute this movie for its shameless waste of thespic talent. Completely squandered are Robert Duvall, Angelina Jolie and Giovanni Ribisi (Boiler Room).
But most prominent among the victims is he of the hangdog expression. Academy Award winning Nicolas Cage, fond of fashioning his characters as either darkly depressed or experiencing a Job-like religious experience, leans toward the latter here. Watch his ecstatically tortured face as he reluctantly appraises and then dons his favourite car-stealing jacket. The music rises and swells with Wagnerian import. If Mt. Olympus had a god of car thievery who fell from grace and was then forced into mortality, this is he. Alas, now he is reincarnated as Southern California's answer to Jean Valjean, replete with Delroy Lindo as his very own Inspector Javert. Actually, the perennially grimacing gumshoe is Detective Roland Castlebeck, and he's waiting for his arch nemesis to make just one false move. Who says the masses don't care for opera? They've just cut out the singing to make room for the car crashes.
Yes, there are wrecks aplenty. Not to worry, though -- the really good stuff goes unscathed. Yet while too many of the automotive treasures lurk in the shadows of back alley garages and the secret warehouses where their "boosters" scheme future acquisitions, car enthusiasts will have a field day yelling out the marques. But for whatever reason, a special mystical eminence is bestowed on the 1967 Mustang Cobra GT 350. And Castlebeck calls it. He says Memphis won't filch said silver beauty until last. "Why?" asks his glibly pattering assistant, Detective Drycoff (Timothy Olyphant). "Because he's afraid of it," Castlebeck solemnly replies, hinting that is just one shard of voluminous lore surrounding his great white whale.
We groan in disbelief at such cartoonish dialogue. But hey, it sure doesn't look like Memphis is afraid of that Cobra. He alludes the authorities through city street, interstate, and those concrete flood sluices at speeds of over 150 mph. Shades of The French Connection, this is the best car chase scene in years. And while the high-speed insanity doesn't equal in quantity the legendary 40 minutes it occupied in screenwriter Toby Halicki's original film, it certainly makes up for it in breathtaking quality. It's the only aspect worth remembering. The rest of Gone in Sixty Seconds will be forgotten in no time.
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