Entertainment Ave! The Movie Theater - A movie review of Gone in 60 Seconds.

Gone in 60 Seconds Movie Stats & Links
Starring:	Nicolas Cage, Angelina Jolie, Giovanni Ribisi, Robert Duvall
MPAA Rated:	PG-13
Released By:	Touchstone Pictures
Web Site:	www.goneinsixtyseconds.com
Kiddie Movie:	If you want them to think stealing cars is kinda cool, bring them along.
Date Movie:	It's more a dude flick than a dudette flick, but it's not all about cars so she might like it.
Gratuitous Sex:	Some scenes that got pretty close.
Gratuitous Violence:	Some shooting and stuff, but nothing gratuitous.
Action:	The main plot is about stealing cars - what do you think?
Laughs:	Some pretty good one-liners.
Memorable Scene:	Nothing specific.
Memorable Quote:	Two lines: "I stay my black ass out the pool." "What kind of pervert gets his jollies off playing with dog shit?"
Directed By:	Dominic Sena
Produced By:	Jerry Bruckheimer, Mike Stenson

After seeing the trailer for about seven months now, basically the same damn trailer not really saying anything about the movie except that a bunch of guys are going to try to steal a bunch of cars in a night, well, usually with a lead time like that, that’s my cue for a disaster of a movie. Could you keep me entertained for a couple of hours with a lot of car chases? Probably not. Could you keep me entertained with fancy car after fancy car? Probably not. Could you keep me entertained if Angelina Jolie gets naked? Alright, probably so. Was any of this in "Gone in 60 Seconds?" Well, you didn’t have two hours of car chases, you didn’t get fancy car after fancy car, and Angelina kept her clothes on. Even so I still enjoyed the movie.

The story line kinda goes like this – Nicolas Cage is Randall Raines. He used to be the king of car thieves until he retired for personal reasons. The problem is his brother, Kip (Giovanni Ribisi) takes up where his brother left off, only he’s not as good at it. He blows a boost (stealing a car as they call it), really pissing off the bad guy, Raymond (Christopher Eccleston), who decides if he doesn’t get the fifty cars he needs in four days, well, Kip dies. This brings Randall out of retirement, to save his brother’s ass, and he recruits most of his old cronies, including Sway (Jolie), and Otto (Robert Duvall). For the job. So you’ve got the old-schoolers with the experience with the new-schoolers, Kip’s buddies, working together to steal 50 cars in one night. It’s a pretty busy night.

Yes, the story line is kinda stupid, yes, Angelina keeps her clothes on, and yes, as one might expect, you get the generic car chases (except with cooler cars), but what’s cooler about the movie is it just wasn’t car boost after car boost as one might expect. More interesting is the prep work needed to get the boosting done – tapping garage door codes, getting laser cut keys, tapping into the DMV to find out where cars might be, and seeing that "The Club" won’t always stop a thief. You get some comedy, some cool car stealing maneuvers, a creative use for Ex-Lax, and a role that for a change had me like Nicolas Cage. I was able to lose my sense of reality from the beginning (important in a movie with so many things that wouldn’t be based in reality), could get around the stupid, cop sub-plot, really didn't care that much about the bad guy, so I guess it was pretty easy to keep me entertained.

Duval was fun to watch as always, Ribisi played the stupid brother well, and I always like Jolie even if she wasn’t used as well as she could have been. Big Cooter came with me and said it was the second best movie of the summer behind "Gladiator." I don’t know about that, but I really expected worse. I didn’t get it.

With that it’s 3 ½ stars for "Gone in 60 Seconds" out of 5. No, wait, you know what, it's 4 stars out of 5. You know why? Because I won't have to see that damn trailer in front of just about every movie I have seen since November of '99.