Blow Out

1981 movie

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Jack, sound man for cheapo exploitation films, accidentally records the sounds of a car accident that takes a senator/presidential hopeful's life. He dives into the water and saves the female passenger, a woman whom the senator was nailing on the side. Jack starts to get suspicious when the story that the media is reporting doesn't quite match up with what he heard that night. Meanwhile, he starts thinking that maybe he'd also like to nail that woman, too. Unfortunately, some menacing-looking fellow wants her dead. He also wants to record Menudo over his recordings. Oh, snap!

I really enjoyed this movie despite flawed storytelling. Lithgow's villain, one of those single-named villains (Burke), is a really good one, but there are more than a few questions about his intelligence in this. He spends the majority of this movie trying to clean up messes that, if he was halfway as crafty as he looks with that cute little watch and gloves of his, wouldn't be messes in the first place. And the end of this movie sort of erupts into a "What the hell is going on?" when Travolta's character drives through a parade, is knocked unconscious with his imitation of an elderly driver near a farmer's market, and then is able to so easily dart off when he wakes up in an ambulance. And am I mistaken or is Travolta's character listening for the sound of fireworks to help him find Burke and Sally? Oh, [Spoiler Alert], by the way. Sorry about that. Despite the issues with some of what goes on here, this is enormously entertaining and works because of good performances and De Palma's style. And I always give bonus points for unhappy endings. Travolta's as good as I've seen him, really selling the "sound man whiz kid" job well. And he gets a chance to act all sad and blubber-lipped in front of a flag and fireworks at the end of this, a scene which I swear lasted for over ten minutes. Nancy Allen's performance was the sort of performance that won't make you too upset when her character is murdered, but Lithgow and Dennis Franz, who spares us his ass in this, are both terrific in darker or slimier roles. There's a scene where Franz is urinating that I felt compelled to watch thrice. Of course, it's the small and completely insignificant roles that usually attract my attention, and there's an extra in the train station who draws attention to himself that I really liked. There's also a sailor who gets a cheap blow job in a phone booth during a really cool and slightly creepy scene. He's played by Tim Choate, a surname awfully close to choad, and I wonder how many of the 52 roles on his discography were playing a guy receiving fellatio because he's really good here. I would have definitely overacted, probably halfway destroyed the phone booth. But I digress. What makes this movie well worth watching is the tension that De Palma is able to create and the style. There's a lot of split screen stuff, and I love all the sound effects. I'm also a sucker for movies that show the same scenes from multiple perspectives (think, Back to the Future II), especially if frogs and owls are involved. There's also an incredible scene with some dizzying camera spinning when Travolta realizes his tapes have been erased. The music is poured on pretty heavily in this thing though. I really think I would have preferred that this entire story was seen from Travolta's character's perspective.

Larry picked this for me to watch after he won a "Guess this movie" contest on my Facebook. I think it was because he knew it would inspire me to use the word choad for the first time on this blog.