The reviews for this movie were all pretty bad, but you can't walk into a movie like this and expect anything more than mindless fun. If it's not a fun movie, then it failed. Me personally, I think that "Gone in 60 Seconds" is a fun movie. An entertaining escape from the monotony of life is all it is, and it works as such.
The star of "Gone in 60 Seconds" is Nicolas Cage, and this is his third film for producer Jerry Bruckheimer (the other two being "The Rock" and "Con Air"). Sometimes, Nicolas Cage blows me away as an actor. He did it with "Leaving Las Vegas," and he did it with "Face/Off." Other times, it seems like he's going through the motions, or simply doing a bad job, most notably with "City of Angels." In this movie, well, he's just going through the motions, but that's fine, at least he wasn't bad. Besides, for this kinda movie, not much was needed of him, so it was acceptable. The biggest disappointment between the actors would have to be Angelina Jolie (who recently won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance in "Girl, Interrupted"), not because she acted poorly, but because she wasn't in the movie enough. Her role was as nothing more than "the girl," ya know what I mean?
There were quite a few other talented actors in the movie, including Giovanni Ribisi (does he ALWAYS look stoned?), Robert Duvall (just another paycheck for this immensely talented actor), Delroy Lindo (another great, great actor), Will Patton (you'll recognize him from another Jerry Bruckheimer movie, "Armageddon"), Chi McBride (I remember this guy from a great, darkly funny TV show that not a lotta people saw called "The John Larroquette Show"), Scott Caan (son of you-know-who... this guy's pretty buff, he'da made a good "Wolverine" for the upcoming "X-Men" movie... he was with Giovanni Ribisi in "Boiler Room," by the way), James Duvall (he was the not-so-bright boyfriend of Rose McGowan in the VERY dark, excellent movie, "The Doom Generation"), Christopher Eccleston (great British actor who was the sinister Duke of Norfolk in "Elizabeth"), Vinnie Jones (he was awesome in this movie as "The Sphinx," a great, though not entirely original, character... he was last seen in "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels"), and Timothy Olyphant (he's a talented young actor who played the drug dealer who got to make out with Katie Holmes in the very entertaining "Pulp Fiction" rip-off, "Go"). Good cast, eh?
Some of you may or may not know this, but "Gone in 60 Seconds" is actually a remake of the independent film of the same name that was released in 1974. The original was written, produced, and directed by Toby Halicki. He also starred in the movie. Sadly, he died while performing a stunt for the movie's sequel. Poor guy. From what I hear, this original is very good, and has lots more action. I wouldn't know, I've never seen it. One day, perhaps.
"Gone in 60 Seconds" (the remake) was written by Scott Rosenberg. I'm not so sure I know how I feel about this guy. He wrote "Disturbing Behavior" (which sucked), "Con Air" (which was stupid, but mildly entertaining), "Beautiful Girls" (which I liked a lot, but much of that had to do with the performance of a brilliant young actress you may have heard of named Natalie Portman), and "Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead" (which I never saw). On the other hand, the director, and my main reason for wanting to see this movie, is Dominic Sena. This is only his second feature film, his first being the great, underrated movie that proved to me early on that Brad Pitt is a great actor, "Kalifornia." The thing is, that movie came out seven years ago, and I have no clue why Sena hadn't done any movies in the years between "Kalifornia" and "Gone in 60 Seconds." Whatever the reason, Sena is STILL a great director. The script may be pretty lame, but Sena did the best he could do with it, and lemmie tell you, the chase scene at the end of the movie is EXCELLENT! It may be one of the best chase scenes I've ever seen in a movie.
A lot of people
are gonna hate this movie (most critics sure do), but I was entertained.
There coulda been more action, and realistically, it's a shit movie. Still,
there were lotsa talented people in front of and behind the camera involved
in the making of this movie. I just hope that Dominic Sena doesn't decide
to take another seven years off.