It gets three stars for (mostly) the car chases
and the quality of menace that O'Neal manages to put into the two affectless,
almost unaccented words "Go Home".
You know you're in for someone's ego-trip attempt at The Great American
Existentialist Film when the characters have no names, just labels -- "The
Driver", "The Player", "The Cop", etc.
It becomes more obvious when every other bit of dialog is a dry, "clever"
bit of cynicism.
And it's right there in your face when the major plot revelation in the film
is that people don't always do what they "always do".
It's far from awful -- Hill is a decent if overrated writer/director. I mean,
he's working the same vein as Leone, Peckinpah and Siegel, just not in as
rich a part of the ore.
Well worth seeing for the transitory fun of the story and the incredible
driving sequences -- comparable to the original "Gone in 60 Seconds" or
"Vanishing Point" and superior to, say "Bullitt". But most people i've known
who have kept the tape, kept it they can watch that Mercedes in the garage,
the chase inside the warehouse or the other driving sequences, not to revel
in the story. |
