Dross in 117 minutes (Gone in Sixty Seconds (DVD))

Member Name: Nickm101

Product:	Gone in Sixty Seconds (DVD)
Date:	15/03/01 (28 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Nice cars

Disadvantages: too many to mention

Car chases for me started with Bullitt, and ended with Ronin. The sooner Hollywood realise this, and stop building films around them, the sooner they can get on with re-creating/re-writing World War II. No wait a minute, I want them to stop that as well..oh drat, you know what I mean!

Gone in 60 Seconds, the original 70s movie, was about a car thief, which involved mashing and wrecking cars for a large portion of the film was fairly bad, even considering its lack of budget. The plot was amateurish, and the cinematography was rather basic.
Gone in 60 Seconds, the 2000 remake is largely the same without all the mashing and smashing...
The basic premise is that big brother (Nicolas Cage) is a legendary (ex-) car thief. Little brother (Giovanni Ribisi) is currently a car thief, but rather less legendary. He mucks up the bad guys' (Christopher Eccleston) order for loads of cars, and big brother has to come out of retirement to save day/nick loads of cars.
Filmed in a glossy, pop video style format, the film (for me) can't seem to work out what it wants to be. I think it wants to be a fun, car chasing, crime doesn't pay (but it does sort of) film. Quite why Scott Rosenborg (screenplay), and Dominic Sena (director) found the need to add pseudo-mysticism, and apple pie schmalz to the mix is beyond me.
The car chases are shot in such a way that you don't really retain a sense of danger or realism, exactly the things that made Bullitt and Ronins' chases just so damn good.
Nicolas Cage overacts his way through the film, a little like Snake-eyes, although at least that particular film warranted the extravagance. His lines with his mentor, played by Robert Duvall are nice, but don't go far enough into exploring their bond. It hints at paternal affection, but in this plastic film, it feels a little out of place. Angelina Jolie pouts throughout, oozing appeal, but I just didn't find her a believable character..and as for
Vinny Jones..In fact, you never feel any attachment to any of the characters, who are all so caricatured, and quite ridiculous.
Quite why they felt it right to have Christopher Eccleston playing a british hard man (I forget the accent, I think it was somewhere in Yorkshire) with an Italian name, and a penchant for woodwork is lost on me. He is merely there as a face, with only bad lines, designed to make Mr.Cage look good.
The end is drawn out, obvious from about 30 mins in, which makes it even more frustrating.
Simply put, I?m glad I didn't waste time and money going to see it at the cinema, but I?m annoyed I paid good money to see it on video
.

Summary: