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Actor Nicolas Cage and Producer Jerry Bruckheimer team up again
for another summer blockbuster. This is an exciting prospect,
for their previous efforts, The Rock and Con Air, rank as two
of my all time favourite action movies. Gone in 60 Seconds,
however, fails to deliver to the same degree as it predecessors.
Despite an all star cast and one good car chase, the movie suffers
due to a predictable storyline and some boring characters.
Cage stars as Randall 'Memphis' Raines, a master car thief.
Though now retired, his name is still spoken with awe by both
policemen and criminals alike. His younger brother Kip (Giovanni
Ribisi) has chosen to follow in big brother's footsteps and
has become a handy car lifter himself but he has botched up
his most recent job. This has landed him in trouble with local
underworld big shot and furniture lover Raymond Calitri (Christopher
Eccleston as one of the most laughable villains of the year).
Randall is forced to come out of retirement to save his brother's
hide by completing the job for Calitri. The job in this case
is to boost (I think that's a fancy word for 'nick') 50 flash
cars in three days. Randall fritters away two of those days
(and much of our movie time) by reassembling his old gang of
thieves to help him out. The gang includes all the usual stereotypes:
friendly black guy (Chi McBride), big silent tough guy (football
hardman Vinnie Jones - can you spell 'typecast'?), ex-girlfriend
(Angelina Jolie), and wise old father figure (Robert Duvall).
These are of course 'the good guys' and the obvious moral dilemma
of how they can be good when they are stealing other people's
stuff is easily solved by the fact that the people they are
stealing from are rich. So that makes it alright then.
Quite rightly standing in the way of all this thievery are
detectives Castlebeck and Drycoff (Delroy Lindo and Timothy
Olyphant). Lindo makes a good fist of playing the wise but weary
cop and actually provides one of the film's better performances
despite his character's unbelievable incompetence when it comes
to catching a bunch of crooks about whom he knows their names,
their mission, and even the location of their hideout.
Towards the end of the film there is about 20 minutes of exciting
action, and director Dominic Sena does a good job of setting
up a car chase where we are actually worried about what happens
to the car (a 1967 Ford Mustang Shelby GT). Where the movie
fails, however, is that we do not end up caring much for the
characters, especially slimy Kip, for whom everyone is risking
their lives. Also, it is always a shame to see good actors (there
are three Oscar winners in the cast) being given so little material
to work with - Duvall and Jolie just seem to be going through
the motions. Jolie, in particular is given a puzzling role and
the romance with Cage can only be described as pointless in
the context of the rest of the movie.
Overall a disappointing movie. See it if you love watching
cars, or if you want some pointers for your next auto heist.
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