Summer of Nicolas Cage Movie #2: Gone in 60 Seconds

2000 car movie remake

Rating: 8/20

Plot: Master car thief Memphis Raines is pulled out of retirement after his little brother Cleveland Raines gets into a little trouble. He's got three days to get a crew together and steal fifty luxury automobiles to save his brother's life. Oh, snap!

There's only one reason to watch this movie--a scene where Nicolas Cage's character, right before the start of the big car-stealin' action, pops in "Low Rider" ("All my friends know the lowrider. The lowrider is a little higher. The low rider drives a little slower. Low rider is a real goer.") because they've got fifty cars to steal in one night, damn it, and that's the only way Nicolas Cage can get juiced up for this crap. His character goes into this little trance; wiggles and then sticks his fingers up like he's either meditating or flashing gang signs or, as only Nicolas Cage can, simultaneously meditating and flashing gang signs; jerks around a bit; and then says, "Ok, let's ride." That scene is awesome! Trust me. My description of this doesn't do it justice. Take your pants off and Youtube it.

There are multiple reasons to stay away from this movie though. The overuse of the term boosting. Boosting cars, going boosting, hey--I'm boosting in here, boosting this, boosting that, Angelina Jolie's boosting, Robert Duvall knows boosting, boosting boosting, I'm a booster he's a booster wouldn't you like to be a booster too, everybody was kung-fu boosting, check it--I'm boosting, can you keep it quiet because I'm boosting, fifty car boosting--that's absurd, boosting legends, all we are saying is give boosting a chance. It was irritating. I imagined all the actors standing around, going over their lines and arguing about who gets to say boosting. "Why does Robert Duvall get to say 'boosting' twice?" "Hey, Dominic. What do you think about my character saying 'boosting' right here?" All of these characters, including Memphis Raines, are boring. Angelina Jolie brings nothing to the table. Robert Duvall is quickly becoming a movie pet peeve of mine as he just stands around and looks dopey in every movie he's in. Here, he plays a pointless character, the unflappable old-timer veteran booster type, and does his usual stellar job of standing around and looking dopey. And the producers of this really missed an opportunity by not naming his character Booster Cogburn. Giovanni Ribisi, the guy who plays Tallahassee Raines, rubs me the wrong way, too. With an action movie or heist-type movie you need one of two things: 1) Good action or 2) Good heisting. I'd prefer the meticulous planning and creative scheming over the big dumb action scenes any day. Gone in 60 Seconds actually doesn't have either one though. You get a lot of scenes with people turning keys or sneaking around or drawing lines through car names on a list (I wonder, by the way, how these people can be so high-tech and then use chalk and a blackboard for their big fifty car list) and have to wait for the very end of the movie to get a good action scene. It's a car chase with Memphis and some cops. It's so-so but nothing to pump your fist about. The best thing about this Nicolas Cage movie is that it's out of the way. Gone in 60 Seconds? I wish this movie would have been done in 60 seconds. Wakka wakka wakka!

"Keep it real. Think slow. We'll get through this." Thanks, Nicolas Cage. Those are definitely words to live by.