Gone In Sixty Seconds

A retired car thief is blackmailed back into stealing cool cars when his little brother’s life is threatened by a mean, ol’ car thief ring operator. The older brother basically has 24 hours to steal 50 specific high-priced automobiles or his little brother bites the dust. Simple enough?

A below-par Bruckheimer film which does satisfy with a couple of cool chase scenes, a semi-interesting tale and car-stealing scenarios, but ultimately doesn’t blow you away with anything. I enjoyed this film because it looked cool, the people in it were acting cool and all of the cars in it screamed cool, but I can’t honestly say that it was a good movie. I was never bored during the film, but other than the last 30 minutes or so, I kept wondering where all the action was. Just like every other Bruckheimer machismo guy flick, there is always the prerequisite situation (I like to call it the “A-Team scene”) featuring the rounding up of a certain motley crew of gruffy, down-and-out and badass MoFos, and the mobilization of the master plan. Generally, this part only lasts a few minutes and we move on to a whole lot of wham-bang-and-thank-you-ma’ams, but this film decided to spend a lot more time on the set-up. Perhaps it was supposed to develop the characters somehow, but despite the story being absorbing to a certain extent, I did keep wondering when all the action was gonna take place, especially when the holes started showing up in the plot.

And when they finally did begin stealing the cars, I was doubly surprised at how little resistance (read action/fun blow ’em ups) there was as well. I don’t know, maybe I just expected too much popcorn for my buck, but despite the film coming through as a whole, it did disappoint as an all-out nacho flick. Cage was Cage once more, the staple hip, tough guy with a heart, while the rest of the crew was a well-rounded bunch this time around. Lindo was cool, Duvall is always fun to watch, Vinnie Jones is just waiting to be discovered as the next action-hero superstar and Ribisi, well, I’ll admit that he’s finally starting to get on my nerves with his down-and-out character portrayals. I was also a little disappointed with the one-liners in this film, which seemed a little weak this time around. But overall, the film is a slick one to watch, offering a couple of rockin’ action scenes, some fun characters, and despite its plot holes (the cops know about their entire plan the whole time, but they decide to send two incompetents after them?), a somewhat interesting tale. And oh yeah…Angelina Jolie is barely in it!

At this point, I think everyone knows what a “Bruckheimer movie” is, so please don’t go into this movie expecting anything more than that. With that in mind, you might just enjoy yourself.

(c) 2021 Berge Garabedian