U-Turn

If Dashiell Hammett and David Lynch had a love child of a movie, this would be it. It’s modern film noir with a really strange twist.

This is the latest Oliver Stone movie, though, so it has some definite Stone-isms. Let’s start with the basic plot:

Sean Penn plays Bobby Cooper, a man running for his life into the wrong town on the wrong day. He’s driving through the Arizona desert on a hot summer’s day in his 1964 1/2 Mustang. Suddenly, his radiator hose blows. He pulls into a small town called Superior (which is probably alluding to Stone’s attitude) where he meets every weirdo in the world. The first one is Darrell (Billy Bob Thornton in his dirtiest role yet), a dim-witted mechanic. Then he meets a blind man (Jon Voight) who spouts out his own brand of philosophy. By the way, this is Stones third weird Indian dude that I know of. If things go the way they’ve been going his next film will be either about Vietnam or a dead president and then we’ll get another weird Indian dude. (Actually, according to the IMDB his next film is The Planet Of The Apes. Whatever.)

Anyway, he then meets Grace McKenna (Jennifer Lopez). She is a cool seductress who is married to an older, dominating man named Jake (Nick Nolte). There’s also a whacked-out sheriff played by Powers Booth, a little girl who wants to have Bobby’s love child (Claire Danes) and her stupid, not quite so tough boyfriend Toby N. Tucker (Joaquin Phoenix). “Everyone calls me TNT! Cause when I go off people get hurt!”

Of course, Bobby gets involved with Grace and gets offers from both sides of the married couple to kill the other. He switches sides more times than Benedict Arnold. (Hence, the title.) But, then again, so does everyone else.

Oh yeah, Bobby’s also on the run from a bunch of thugs that he owes $30,000. And Darrell won’t give him his car back until he pays him $200 for the hose. Bobby’s last line to Darrell is a classic.

After Stone’s last ultra-violent movie, Natural Born Killers, I was ready to hate this one. As far as I’m concerned, NBK was one of the worst movies ever made. It disgusted me in every way possible. It didn’t offend me because of the violence or anything like that. It offended me because it ruined Quentin Tarantino’s story and it was so STUPID!!!! I hated how it kept going from black and white to cartoon to crud. Not to mention the fact that it was one of the most pretentious films in recent memory.

Ok, I’ve ranted enough. Let’s move on.

This movie was actually good! I was really surprised. It didn’t dip too far into Stone’s pretentions (only one b&w shot in the whole movie and no cartoons) and it told an interesting story. It was basically a strange version of a film noir. The seductress gets the man involved in a plot that will go against his values. The man can either lose by throwing his values away or win by keeping to them. This one has a twist, though. (Of course, I won’t tell you what that twist is because I’m smart.)

The acting was great, too. No Woody Harrelsons or Juliette Lewises to screw this one up. Now we get Sean Penn (one of the best actors of the 30-something generation) and Jennifer Lopez. We also get Nick Nolte, Jon Voight, Joaquin Phoenix (who is cool by default because of his better looking and more talented older brother) and Claire Danes. There’s a few small roles taken by cool people, too. Julie Hagerty plays a waitress named Flo (she actually breaks out of her nervous schtick for a while), Laurie Metcalf shows up as a teller at a bus station and Liv Tyler has basically a walk on in the same bus station (due probably to the fact that she’s going out with Joaquin). Oliver puts his son in another role, too. He shows up in the grocery store just before it gets robbed.

This movie is everything that NBK should have been. It doesn’t take itself too seriously, first of all. Stone knows that the characters aren’t redeeming, so he makes them all look like schmoes. He also doesn’t kill us with editing. It definitely has the NBK look to it, but it doesn’t go too overboard. There are a lot of edits and shots with someone talking without their mouths moving, but it doens’t get annoying like it did in NBK. It’s also not just an excuse for violence. There’s actually a story going on behind the shooting. It’s not trying to make a big statement with small characters. It’s just showing us the characters and letting us make our own decisions. No media there to make heroes out of them. It shows a small town with some of the most eccentric people in the world. Maybe David Lynch should have directed it.