Gone in 60 Seconds

Written by: Scott Rosenberg Starring: Nicolas Cage, Angelina Jolie, Giovanni Ribisi, Robert Duvall, Delroy Lindo, Will Patton, Christopher Eccleston, Vinnie Jones

Although I have never seen the original “Gone in 60 Seconds,” I have always had the sense that it was a movie designed to frighten decent folk with the notion that their prized automobiles could be snatched away by degenerates in the wink of an eye (kind of like “Reefer Madness” but with car theft instead of dope smoking). Nevertheless, someone (and apparently it was Jerry Bruckheimer) thought that this fascinating trope needed a remake, and here it is. Rarely have I been as reluctant to attach my eyeballs to a project so relentlessly low brow as this one. (The notion of a movie that was nothing but one long car chase always struck me as a kind of perverse Holy Grail of unimaginative filmmaking--no matter what fans of “Duel” have to say about it.) Talk about cutting to the chase; here there is hardly any cutting required.

Still, writer Rosenberg and director Sena are no dummies. They almost pull it off, and by this I mean that they almost make a watchable picture (not a very high standard, I will admit) out of this inherently uninteresting material. What we are left with is a comedy dressed up as an action picture, trying desperately to shuck its disguise before being stuffed unceremoniously back into a cloak of complete action anonymity. Nicolas Cage plays Randall “Memphis” (though why he is called that is never explained) Raines, a legendary car thief of unimaginable skills, now retired. His younger brother, Kip (Ribisi) has gotten himself in a bit of a pickle; he has contracted to steal 50 cars for the unimaginably evil Raymond Calitri (Eccleston). When the plan goes awry, Calitri threatens to kill Kip (among others) if Memphis doesn’t agree to do the big job.

What else can a big brother do except round up a few of his old comrades for one last score? The catch: they have to do it in three days. Never mind that this supposedly takes place in LA, and it would take three days in LA traffic just to drive to all of the places they drive to, without stealing a single car. This is one tight knit and resourceful group. (The scene in which some of the younger participants are introduced to Memphis--and their “special skills” identified, is a lot more like TV’s “Mission: Impossible” than “ Mission: Impossible 2 ” ever is.) Naturally, fifty car thefts (“boosts” in the lingo) occur forthwith, aided by a variety of slim jims, electronic gizmos, and “laser cut” keys. I have no idea how much of this car boosting stuff is real, but the picture makes stealing expensive automobiles seem slightly less challenging than withdrawing money from an ATM. Oddly, it’s in the character driven (as opposed to the car driven) moments that the picture generates some interest. The filmmakers have put together a nice group of character actors, all of whom seem to be having a pretty good time. Cage is a convincingly mopey as Memphis, delivering his often funny lines with the right mix of resignation and wit.

Robert Duvall, that consummate character actor, is Otto, Randall’s ally and mentor. Delroy Lindo plays Detective Castlebeck, with whom Randall has a very competitive relationship (not unlike that of De Niro and Pacino in “Heat,” although played more for laughs than tension), though I keep wishing Lindo could find a project equal to his strong screen presence. Giovanni Ribisi (“Saving Private Ryan,” “Boiler Room,” and, lest we forget, “Friends”) plays Kip as a fundamentally decent, albeit dimwitted, adolescent. Last year’s Best Supporting Actress (for “Girl, Interrupted”) Oscar winner Angelina Jolie (otherwise known as the Pout With Legs) tags along as well, for what I suspect are the following reasons: to provide a love interest for Memphis; to prove that girls can steal cars too; and to provide eye candy for the hordes of adolescent car enthusiasts who would be expected to flock to this movie. Suffice it to say that Jolie’s role is unlikely to advance the cause of women in film.

Still, were it not for her, the total screen time afforded women in this picture would be about ten seconds. The rest of the youthful cast sport nicknames like “Tumbler” and “Mirror Man” and “Sphinx” (Vinnie Jones, well cast as the unspeakably tough enforcer who also never speaks) and are appropriately energetic. Admittedly, these characters are all types, but they are deftly sketched, and Rosenberg has some fun with them. The most amusing parts of the picture involve the goofy antics of this gang that couldn’t drive straight. Ironically, things slow down when the cars speed up. Sena does a decent job with the action (although he occasionally falls victim to “Gladiator ” disease--shooting the action so close that we can’t tell what’s going on), but there are only so many ways to film cars driving around, and none of them are new. There is less emphasis on the sensuous curves of exotic carflesh than I would have expected, though still a lot more than there is on the sensuous curves of human flesh. There is no sex to speak of in this picture, making it a perfect choice for families with young children needing early indoctrination into the pleasures of rending sheet metal. Even the violence is relatively muted.

There are a few fist fights (with very loud punches), and, of course, car crashes, but, as best as I can determine, only one person gets shot (and he suffers only a minor wound), and only the unimaginably evil Calitri dies, in a manner that would not look out of place in a James Bond picture. “Gone in 60 Seconds” occasionally slips and tries to fling some sentiment about brotherly love or filial devotion on the screen (Memphis, after all, retired from boosting at his mother’s request, so that Kip wouldn’t have a bad role model). But really it’s a picture about the love between man and machine. All the hot cars get women’s names (the femme fatale is a Shelby Cobra dubbed Eleanor), and, as Memphis even says (moodily) at one point, “I did it for the cars.” The movie is fun as long as it sticks with the snappy dialogue and comic horseplay, but eventually Rosenberg seems to remember that it’s supposed to be an action picture (or perhaps Sena put a headlock on the script and wrestled it back on genre). At that point, it devolves into one long car chase, and, despite the fine stunt driving, the appeal evaporates.

The movie manages to get us involved with this bunch of chuckle-headed low-lifes (let’s not forget that they are criminals, after all, even if Memphis has something of a religious conversion towards the end) but then throws them over for screeching rubber and polished chrome. By the time they try to regain our affection at a closing barbecue, the downscale raffishness seems a bit phony. Like a jilted lover, we are seeing things more clearly now. Sometimes a car chase is just a car chase. (6/13/2000)