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Gone in 60 Seconds
Jerry Bruckheimer and Nicholas Cage are a great match and any movie that has both names really makes my dodgy sense tingle, and with good reason. A movie in which the hero is a car thief, the plot revolves around stealing cars and Anglina Jolie looks like the skank that she turned out to be.
The casting can only be described as type. Nicholas Cage is all angsty and conflicted, Giovanni Ribisi is all neurotic and incompetent, and Angelina Jolie has blonde dreadlocks and is all over Nicholas Cage. It surprises me that there were no rumours of the two of them getting together during the shooting of this, but maybe Nicholas Cage had more sense than that.
The plot in this one is straightforward and is a pretty standard dodgy film story. The hero, is dragged back into a world he left behind to save his brother, because he needs to save his brother and redeem himself with the woman he loves. A number of car chases breaks up the story nicely, mainly by interspersing it with some truly beautiful pieces of machinery, which considering the other “eye candy” in this film is just as well.
Dodginess
This is a typical Jerry Bruckheimer production with lots of great action sequences. He even managed to get an explosion into it. Despite this, and the fact that there are a number of pretty great car chases, Gone in 60 Seconds only rates a 3 on the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man scale. There just weren’t enough truly dodgy scenes to catapult it any higher. In fact, only two are worth mentioning, so choosing the dodgiest moment isn’t all that difficult. The undercarriage of the gangbangers car being pulled off by Big Rig loses the title of dodgiest moment to the police car getting smashed through a wall by a wrecking ball.
Rewatchability Rating
If you are into cars, this one would probably rate higher on the rewatchability scale. However, it’s still quite a good action romp and is likely to be pulled out of the DVD cabinet and rewatched reasonably often. It’s mindless and amusing, two adjectives that always go well together for dodgy movie enjoyment. This one rates a 4 on the rewatchability scale.
Most Memorable Quote
Well, there are two winners in this movie. The first is the most memorable quote “I can’t swim, I know I can’t. So you know what I do? I stay my black ass out the pool!” The second is a new category, which really needed to be introduced after the “car through the wall scene.” Drycoff (Josh Duhamel) goes up to the cop who’s car has just been smashed through the wall by the wrecking ball and says “Are you alright? Are you sure? ‘Cause, you just went through a wall.” We all saw the car go through the wall, it was cool. If you didn’t see it, then pointing it out after it has happened isn’t going to help much.
Final Thoughts
Jerry Bruckheimer is always good value if you are looking for a mindless action film with simple plot, some stuff blowing up and zero character development, pretty much everything that makes a dodgy movie worth watching. So, unhook your brain and enjoy the show.