Gone in 60 Seconds is a year 2000 heist movie featuring Nicolas Cage, Christopher Eccleston, Robert Duval, and Angelina Jolie. Cage plays Raymond "Memphis" Raines, a retired and reformed car thief who is thrust back into his former life after his younger brother Kip runs afoul of Eccleston's British gangster Raymond Calitri. Memphis must steal 50 cars in 72 hours in order to save not only his brother's life, but his own as well. Memphis and his crew, put together by Robert Duval's mentor character, and including Angelina Jolie, must do this job while evading a Long Beach, CA grand theft auto unit that is intent on stopping Memphis and his crew.
There is something nostalgic about Gone in 60 Seconds. Watching this movie transported me to a childhood that I have long since forgotten. Whether it intended to or not, the movie captured the late 90s, early 2000s aesthetic like a time capsule. The frosted tips, the genre, the look, the feel - this movie has it all. And this is to the movie's benefit. Well, maybe besides the frosted tips. As I am not particularly a car enthusiast, the allure of the cars didn't really do anything for me - but the way that the characters interacted with and spoke about the cars was very convincing and made me care about not only the plot but the characters as well. In some sense, it does the Fast and Furious family loyalty story better than the more popular franchise, a film that would have been in development during the same time frame. The cat and mouse game that the detectives play with Memphis's crew is quite enjoyable - the movie very rarely has the two groups intersect and it seems that the police are always just one step behind determining the true intent of the group until the climax. Overall, I would say that the movie is very polished. There are some points in the film, particularly how the climax is resolved, that seem very contrived, but fail to diminish the way the tension is built and portrayed in the movie.
No comments:
Post a Comment