I saw Gone in 60 Seconds. Nicolas Cage plays a retired car thief who is forced back into "the life" to save his brother. The brother ("Kip") promised a sadistic criminal that he could steal 50 cars, but he failed. It falls upon Cage to fill the order in 24 hours, so Cage ("Memphis") calls upon his old car-stealing crew, including Angelina Jolie ("Sway"), Robert Duvall ("Otto"), Vinnie Jones ("Sphinx") and other folks with fancy names. The film starts briskly but soon collpases. The characterizations are thin. Scriptwriter Scott Rosenberg follows up his fetid "Con Air" by supplanting quirk for even modest development, so the sadist is a woodworker and "Sphinx" is so named because he does not speak. Black characters say the things that so many black characters say these days, but in the hyped vernacular of a white screenwriter. The film is also insufferably cute. The cars to be stolen are given women's names. One former car thief is a driving instructor. Cage runs a go-cart track. Much mirth. The film is hackneyed. Cage and the bizarre-looking Jolie are ex-lovers. She is bitter because he left criminality. Cage is haunted by a particular car he has tried to steal, and he is hunted by yet another stock black detective (Delroy Lindo) who prefers shouting to speaking.
All of this was to be expected. The film got terrible reviews, and most of these faults were pointed out. The director, Dominic Sena, last shot Kalifornia seven years ago, a brooding, serial killer road movie with Brad Pitt. Still, I was hoping for good car chase sequences in a film about car thievery. The only recent entry into the ranks of "The Seven Ups", "Bullitt", and "The French Connection" was the underrated "Ronin." Gone in 60 Seconds, however, has but one (the finale), and Sena, who has never directed an action picture before, doesn't know how to shoot it.
