Nice Cars (Gone in Sixty Seconds (DVD))

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Product:	Gone in Sixty Seconds (DVD)
Date:	10/02/01 (1 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Shows superb motors

Disadvantages: Repetitve

Since producer Jerry Bruckheimer’s remake of ‘70s B-movie Gone in 60 Seconds is about stealing cars, one expects a high-speed chase or two – the original featured one that lasted 40 minutes. There have been few original car chases since we flew through San Francisco in Bullitt and through Brooklyn in The French Connection. Although director Dominic Sena can’t top his predecessors, he still delivers some of the best excitement in years.

Memphis Raines (Nicolas Cage) is a retired car thief who manages a gas station outside Long Beach. His past comes back to bite him when a former associate shows up with some bad news. Memphis’s kid brother Kip (Giovanni Ribisi) took a bad job or "boost" with a villain named Calitri (Christopher Eccleston). Now Calitri wants Memphis to finish the job or Kip is dead. So Memphis calls on his old posse to help steal 50 cars in one night.

Bruckheimer’s films like Con Air and The Rock, both which featured Cage, have a tenacity of spirit as well as a large cast of eccentric characters that tend to overwhelm the story. However, 60 Seconds showcases a combination of fresh and familiar talent that sparks this story. Cage delivers a solid and totally sympathetic thief whose sole interest is being true to his family. In preparation for the heist, Memphis asks his mother for permission before self-assuredly reminding himself: “I’m a bad man.” Mechanic by day and bartender by night, Sway (Angelina Jolie) is Memphis’ old flame, a kind sub-story that is thankfully effortless. Together, Case and Jolie make a sexy, funky uncouple. Ribisi is powerful as the dishevelled kid who wants to be just like his class act brother. Otto (Robert Duvall) is the old timer who now restores cars instead of chopping them, and ex-soccer icon Vinnie Jones is stolid as the mute brute Sphinx. Rounding out the good guys are detectives Castlebeck and Drycoff (Delroy Lindo and Timothy Oly
phant). They’re Memphis’ monkey wrench, and manage to provide some honestly humorous moments without making the police look like idiots. Eccleston’s Calitri isn’t more evil than sin but his quirks, like building coffins and crushing people in a car compactor, are agreeably sinister.

60 Seconds has a ripe sense of humour. In place of conventional one-liners, screenwriter Scott Rosenberg (Beautiful Girls and Con Air) delivers clever witticisms and moments. There are some clichés like the big silent guy partnered with the loud mouth little guy, but it still works.

Director Sena has produced a surprisingly warm action film without getting mushy, too intricate or too over-the-top. Memphis’ group reunites, not for the crime, but out of loyalty to their friend. The bad guy is an imperfect jerk who isn’t a super villain. The cops challenge our hero rather than act merely as comical buffoons. Oh, and there are some great car chase sequences, including smashing buses, ramp jumps, helicopters, gaseous bombs, wrecking balls and, best of all, reverse drive.

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