What will happen when our planet has exhausted all its fossil fuel and there no more cars to chase or crash, and, even worse, no more multi-million dollar movies in which to chase or crash them?
By that distant time, “Gone in 60 Seconds,” starring Nicolas Cage and a 1967 Shelby Mustang GT 500 called “Eleanor,” will look like a strange relic indeed. With its streets full of stolen Ferraris, Aston Martins, Cadillac El Dorados and Jaguars, and its script full of racy wisecracks, this movie will look like a tribute to the age of power cars. But, for now, it looks (and sounds) like one of the best of its streamlined, over-produced, double-clutch kind: a high-speed, slicker-than-slick car-chase movie with unexpected deposits of character and comedy.
If it doesn’t make you laugh, it might make you groan. The premise — pushed to the max by director Dominic Sena and writer Scott Rosenberg — spins around a retired ace car thief (played by Cage), who is blackmailed into trying to steal 50 cars in one night. His target: 50 top-of-the-line automobiles, including all the makes above, plus a Plymouth Roadrunner, a Lamborghini, a Porsche 911 Twin Turbo and the elusive Mercedes-Benz 300 SL/Gullwing. Though the job also involves two days of recruitment and planning, that last night and morning are, as they say, a hell of a ride — packed with all the careering Camaros, parking lot mayhem, explosions and Los Angeles storm drain chases (a la “Point Blank”) that you or producer Jerry Bruckheimer could possibly want.
Stealing 50 cars in one night is quite an assignment, especially for a “retired” man who promised his mother he’d go straight. But this last job is forced on ace car booster Randall “Memphis” Raines (Cage) when his neophyte car thief younger brother, Kip (Giovanni Ribisi), screws up and alienates psycho gangster Raymond Calitri (Christopher Eccleston of “Jude”). Not your average mellow British emigre, Calitri — who really enjoys himself only during acts of murder or torture — demands either the 50 cars or Kip’s corpse.
Originally, Calitri benevolently gives Memphis three days for the 50 cars, but the canny pro uses two of them assembling a crack team — including ace car jockey Sara “Sway” Wayland (Angelina Jolie), wily mechanic Otto Halliwell (Robert Duvall), pudgy gagster Donny Astricky (Chi McBride, who’s very funny), the strangely silent man-mountain The Sphinx (Vinnie Jones) and his never-silent sidekick Mirror Man (TJ Cross). Breathing down Memphis’ neck is the L.A. area’s best auto theft cop, dour Detective Roland Castlebeck (Delroy Lindo) and his flaky partner Detective Drycoff (Timothy Olyphant). Castlebeck, the best in his job, just as Memphis once was the best in his, has always wanted to catch his opposite number.
The movie’s seemingly absurd setup works better than you might guess because the filmmakers and actors never take it completely straight-line — as it apparently was in the original (and for some car-chase aficionados) legendary low-budget 1974 version (of the same name), directed by and starring Toby Halicki. That movie was almost all chase (including a 40-minute car battle that gave the film its rep). But this new “Gone” doesn’t try to match its predecessor in road time. Instead, it gives us laughs, attitude and a whale of a cast behind those wheels.
Like all Bruckheimer movies (and I’ve disliked as many as I’ve liked), this one has a lot going for it, production-wise. First, there’s Cage, a bizarre — but effective — action-movie star since he won an Oscar for “Leaving Las Vegas.” With his on-screen characters, he tends to go either crazy-hot or crazy-cool — either way with an underpinning of danger, unpredictability and wild fun.
Memphis is one of his laid-back characters, a dark-eyed brooder, a canny pro who doesn’t waste energy and who’s sympathetic here because he doesn’t want to steal cars, he’s just trying to save his brother’s life. And you need a touch of craziness in a movie like this, especially when Memphis gets that reckless, wolfish un-Caged look and the Mustang starts flying over the Long Beach-San Pedro bridge.
There are a lot of other good actors here, too. In fact the cast is so loaded, the movie can afford to waste Duvall. To single a few out, McBride, Cross and Olyphant get most of the laughs: McBride with droll cracks, Cross with a perpetual-motion lip and Olyphant with doofus reactions. Lindo, who is almost in Duvall’s class, is a terrific relentless, straight-arrow pursuer; Eccleston is a fine maniac. As for Jolie, she doesn’t have enough to do.
I haven’t mentioned director Sena and writer Rosenberg much, but not because they weren’t good. Rosenberg (“Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead,” “Beautiful Girls”) keeps the badinage in high gear. And Sena, who once worked for Halicki (on “The Junkman”) and whose last movie was the underrated “Kalifornia,” has a real sense of tempo and humor to go with the high-gloss, golden-lit visuals that are the fruits of his long career in music videos. “Gone in 60 Seconds” — far more than recent competitors “Mission: Impossible 2” or “Shanghai Noon” — is almost the model of a contemporary studio action movie, in both its strengths and flaws, but especially in the way it cranks up and leaves reality behind.
Does it make complete sense? Of course not. It’s about stealing 50 cars in one night, for Pete’s sake. But give it credit. Once Cage puts the key in the ignition, the movie’s gone.
`GONE IN 60 SECONDS’
(star) (star) (star) 1/2
Directed by Dominic Sena; written by Scott Rosenberg; photographed by Paul Cameron; edited by Tom Muldoon, Chris Lebenzon; production designed by Jeff Mann; music by Trevor Rabin; produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, Mike Stenson. A Touchstone Pictures release; opens Friday. Running time: 1:59. MPAA rating: PG-13 (violence, sexuality and language).
THE CAST
Randall Raines ………………. Nicolas Cage
Sara Wayland ………………… Angelina Jolie
Kip Raines ………………….. Giovanni Ribisi
Detective Roland Castlebeck …… Delroy Lindo
Atley Jackson ……………….. Will Patton
Raymond Calitri ……………… Christopher Eccleston
Otto Halliwell ………………. Robert Duvall
