Gone in 60 Seconds

What is? Hope? Dignity? My will to live...?

Southern California was the birthplace of two uniquely American institu- tions—the motion picture industry and the hotrod culture—so it’s no surprise that the two have enjoyed a long and incestuous romance. In fact, many of our celluloid heroes only reach their peak of raw sexuality when behind the wheel. Think of James Dean’s sensitive, alienated teen in Rebel Without a Cause, Barry Newman’s melancholic speed-freak in Vanishing Point, or Dick Van Dyke’s brooding, existential loner in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

As Hollywood has repeatedly demonstrated, looks, fame and money are all well and good; but if you want love, you need a love machine. No matter how stupid and unappealing a character may be, if he’s got a hot car, then he’s legally entitled to a hot chick (as established in the landmark “Knight Rider” case Hasselhof v. Landers Sisters, et al). The hero’s auto-erotic auto doesn’t even have to be a sports car; because let’s face it, we all know that Freddy and Daphne were periodically steaming up the windows of the Mystery Machine. Hell, we bet even Shaggy and Thelma had at least one awkward and embarrassing fumble in the back of the van. True, Shaggy’s relationship with Scooby was less “a boy and his dog” and more “a man’s best friend with benefits,” while Thelma was Saturday Morning’s most prominent Lesbian Separatist, but there had to have been one magic night, when they were both wasted on weed and Annie Greensprings Country Cherry Wine after exposing Old Man McCauley, the 73rd in a long line of abandoned amusement park owners who found it necessary to gad about in a sheet. And he would’ve gotten away with it too, if it hadn’t been for those diddling kids!

Anyway, if you can believe that a bad Maynard G. Krebs caricature could make a poorly animated lesbian claw his back and rend the night air with full-throated cries of “Jinkies!”, then you’re the perfect target audience for our next film. Buckle up.

Gone in 60 Seconds (2000)
Directed by Dominic Sena
Written by Scott Rosenberg

Unkempt ragamuffin Giovanni Ribisi steals a brand new Porsche by driving it through the plate glass window of the dealership. Not content with property damage and grand theft auto, he pops the clutch and tells the World to Eat My Dust. The World responds that they’ve already eaten, thank you, and now they’re flaked out in front of the TV watching a crappy action movie. So it’s up to the police to dine on Giovanni’s dust, and they react with an influx of cruisers and helicopters, which follow him back to the headquarters of kindly, avuncular auto theft mentor Will Patton.

Cut to the desert, where Giovanni’s brother, Nicolas Cage is giving a motivational speech to a bunch of eleven-year-olds at a Go-Kart track. Will arrives, and tells Nick that Giovanni was working for a criminal mastermind so evil that his underworld confederates call him “The Carpenter,” because the name “The Texture-Coater” was already taken.

The Carpenter is so angry over Giovanni’s stunt with the Porsche that he puts the kid inside an auto-press and turns it on. Then he delivers an ultimatum to Nicolas: he must steal 50 cars in four days, or Giovanni will be squeezed into a cube and displayed along with the cross-sectioned cow in the Brooklyn Museum.

Nick mulls it over as his brother screams, giving the auto-crusher just enough time to squeeze a quart of oil out of Giovanni’s hair before agreeing. Oh, by the way, Nick’s character is the World’s Greatest Car Thief (one of the less popular theme mugs at Spencer’s Gifts) and his name is “Memphis Rains.” No, I don’t believe it either, but felt I ought to mention it, since the screenwriter obviously spent a lot of time coming up with the name, first considering and rejecting such possibilities as April Showers, or London Fogg.

Robert Duvall, co-star of Days of Thunder, shows up to lend dignity to yet another stupid car-crash movie. Hopefully, he’s lending at a high rate of interest, and sending people out to break the director’s thumbs when he can’t pay the vig.

This time out, Robert is a kindly old former chop shop owner who helps Nick reassemble his crew, which includes Sphinx, a Lurch-sized mute who is employed by the county morgue to leave half-eaten sandwiches on all the cadavers as part of their turn-down service, and Angelina Jolie, who leads a sort of Flashdance Meets Coyote Ugly life, working as a car mechanic by day, and a bartender by night. She also sports a huge head of bleached blonde dreadlocks that make her look like a cross between Edgar Winter and Bob Marley.

With time ticking toward the deadline, the crew goes to work trying to pin-point the 50 exotic and expensive cars on their list. Nick himself visits an exclusive Mercedes dealership and inquires about the contents of their warehouse. But he allays suspicion by going incognito, dressing in a suit and speaking in an English accent. Specifically, Kevin Costner’s English accent from Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves; so apparently he’s gone disguised as a bad actor.

Unfortunately, police detective Delroy Lindo figures out the entire scheme after receiving an anonymous tip from the screenwriter, and begins to stake out the crew. But stakeouts are boring, so the filmmakers throw in a subplot about a rival ring of super car thieves trying to kill Nick and Giovanni, which leads to a big chase scene. On foot.

Huh? Car thieves? Chasing each other on foot?

How’s that for irony?

Okay, we agree, it’s pretty stupid. The filmmakers seem to agree too, so they cut to a scene where the crew breaks into a Ferrari warehouse, and we get a bunch of softcore porn shots of saucy quarterpanels and perky pop-up high beams.

Various automobiles are stolen by various people, and delivered to the port. Nick himself shows up to steal one of the staked-out cars, but he senses a Great Disturbance in the Force, and realizes that all the Mercedes for which they obtained laser-encoded keys are under surveillance. They have other keys, but those cars are in the police impound lot. Oh, and Robert’s dog just ate the other keys. (It’s a good thing they’re not being graded on this theft, because I seriously doubt the teacher would accept that excuse.) Nick snaps into action, ordering Robert to administer Ex-Lax to the dog, and wait for it to pass the keys. This leads to a light-hearted scene in which two of the crew are walking the dog, when suddenly they’re jumped by a gang of thugs who threaten them with knives. Fortunately, the dog chooses that moment to evacuate its bowels, and the two crew members eagerly retrieve the keys from the steaming excreta. This hilariously triggers the gangbangers gag reflexes, and they withdraw in high dudgeon, refusing to sully themselves by eviscerating fecalphiliacs.

Enjoyed that? Well, there’s plenty more whimsy where that came from, as our heroes now use the foul-smelling keys to boost three late model Mercedes from the impound lot. Meanwhile, one of their number distracts the police clerk by putting on a pimp costume and a shoulder-length black wig with bangs, and showing us how the world would look if “Superfly” had been played by Bettie Page.

Eventually, Nick meets up with the 1967 Shelby CT 500 that will be his love interest for the remainder of the film. He steals the car just as Delroy arrives, and finally, the big car chase is on! There’s action! Crashes! Near death experiences!

But enough of that. Let’s grind to a dead stop, shall we, so that Will Patton and Giovanni can have a slow, Bergmanesque colloquy about the past. A lugubrious, dimly-lit disquisition that reeks of Fate, Calvinist determinism, and greasy hair.

Now back to the chase. It’s not a bad chase as these things go, but there aren’t quite as many custom ’67 Mustangs around as there were when the original film was made in 1974, so Nick has to drive very defensively, and can’t afford to bump into anything, or get too crazy. As a result, they have to cut the big chase scene short, and the movie ends as most of these movies do—with a foot pursuit through a steam plant.

Eventually, Nick pushes The Carpenter off a catwalk, and he falls 60 feet and lands in his own hand-carved coffin. Which is either a clever homage to Truman Capote, or a sign that scripter Scott Rosenberg, who also wrote Disturbing Behavior, believes that every movie has to end with somebody plunging to their death from a great height. I admit that he’s got a pretty firm argument with movies like North by Northwest and Die Hard, but feel that he’s on somewhat weaker ground when citing films like A Dog of Flanders, or Camille. (Although in future remakes of Camille, sudden impact trauma would be one good way to cut short the traditional lingering death scene.)

Some film enthusiasts object to Hollywood remaking classic movies, insisting that this sort of cinematic recycling is best reserved for missed opportunities—stories that almost worked the first time, but could benefit from better acting, higher production values, or improved special effects.

The original Gone in 60 Seconds, a shoestring budgeted cult classic from the mid-Seventies, may seem tailor-made for the Summer Movie Makeover treatment. The problem is that the filmmakers took a charming, unpretentious little programmer full of hot cars, fun chase scenes, and porn-style mustaches, and cluttered it up with dull motivations, petroleum-based hair products, and a bunch of characters cut from Syd Field’s Colorform Dolls Screenplay Workbook.

As consumers, we have no objection to cheesy movies. Unfortunately, the remake of Gone in 60 Seconds is Cheez-Wiz in a jewelry box, while the original is an honest block of tangy, wholesome Wisconsin cheddar.

Choose wisely.