Nice visuals, yet probably took "60 Seconds" to create the plot (Gone in Sixty Seconds (DVD))

Member Name: pineroad

Product:	Gone in Sixty Seconds (DVD)
Date:	20/07/00 (10 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Lots of nice cars

Disadvantages: Unbelievable

"Gone in 60 Seconds" is nothing less than what we've come to expect from a Jerry Bruckheimer film by now: blaring music, jerky cinematography, plus Nicolas Cage playing another hero with a nutty name; here he's Randall "Memphis" Raines (is he a Johnny Rivers fan or something?), in the tradition of Stanley Goodspeed ("The Rock") and Cameron Dye ("Con Air").

Raines is an ex-car thief who is soon roused out of retirement upon learning he must steal 50 cars in a small period of time, or his brother Kip (Giovanni Ribisi) will die at the hands of villain Raymond Calitri's (Christopher Eccleston) hired thugs. So, Raines enlists some of his thieving buddies (Chi McBride, Vinnie Jones and Scott Caan, among others) to steal the 50 cars, which all happen to have female names (as in a '67 Shelby named "Eleanor"), all while Raines is continuously hounded by a wizened police detective (Delroy Lindo). The filmmakers probably devised this story in the same amount of time it took you to read this.

Being an action junkie, this film lived up to, but didn't surpass, my expectations. One of my favorite scenes was in the beginning when car thieves are trying to escape from the police, which was nicely enhanced by Crystal Method music and flying camera work by Paul Cameron.

Now to the negatives. To say Robert Duvall was wasted here would be an understatement. The only thing notable about Angelina Jolie's role was her hair, which resembled a macrame plant holder. It's obvious that she received such high billing for such little screen time due to her Oscar win for "Girl, Interrupted." The insipid "romance" with her and Cage was a big waste of celluloid and only served to gum up the plot. One big groan factor was seeing Master P (who seemingly can't have rappers defecting from his record label fast enough) in a bland role as - gasp - a gun-toting thug. I didn't
even know it was him till I saw the end credits - praise the Lord. Ribisi is barely believable as Cage's brother, and Eccleston's villain is hard to take seriously.

What really blew me away was when Memphis gets socked with a set of brass knuckles and all he winds up with is a small dot of blood on his lower lip. Give me a break. We all know what would happen if we were hit with one of those things in real life.

The first hour drags horribly, and doesn't pick up until the actual theft spree begins, but even that relies more on cheap laughs (most notably McBride yelling into a cell phone, "My wife's having a baby!" which was pretty funny) rather than thrills. I couldn't believe that there was only one car chase in the entire film, near the end.

At one point I was wondering: who deserved top billing, the actors or the cars?

But what stuck out the most was the essence of the plot, about car thieves trying to steal 50 vehicles in 24 hours. Now, I can suspend my disbelief as well as the next person, but I personally had a hard time rooting for the "good guys" - Cage and his band of Merry Men - due to the fact that they were just that, car thieves, no matter what their cause was. It wouldn't have mattered if they were stealing these cars to save Mother Teresa; this film most of the time resembled an auto theft "How To" video.

Still, many parts of this movie were fun to watch and managed to hold my attention, including the truck smashing through a wall during the end chase sequence.

"Gone in 60 Seconds" is a mildly entertaining flick with some flaws, which we've come to expect from a Bruckheimer work by now. Like its automotive counterparts, it starts slow out of the gate and makes multiple pit stops before finally picking up full speed.

Summary: