Reactions visible to anyoneReactions visible to owner’s Close FriendsReactions only visible to youDraft entryVisible to anyone (with link)Visible to the member’s friends (with link)Only visible to you
A stripped down but terrific car chase film in which writer-director Walter Hill marries the urban carnage of “Bullitt” and the original “Gone in 60 Seconds” (polished to a much higher sheen) with the meditative, spiritually bereft tone of Bresson. In accordance with the latter, two of the leads, Ryan O’Neal and Isabelle Adjani, manage to perfectly embody Bresson’s dramaturgical ideal of actors as models. They’re both emotionally blank and look fantastic, even if Hill’s orchestration of their zen-like performances never truly gets close to the same epistemological territory as Bresson’s work. Bruce Dern keeps the plot moving forward in a wonderfully vile, hammy, bad cop role. The real star though is the tactile automotive action; combustion engines roar, metal crunches and rubber squeals, all with ferocious energy as O’Neal’s titular wheel man burns through Los Angeles streets. It’s probably the best driving performance ever committed to film, both because of the harrowing practical stunt driving and O’Neal’s commitment to the act of driving. You feel the weight and impact on his body with every gear shift in a way that you never do in the many other, lesser car chase movies that have followed.
Saw a Canal+ restored projection at Écoles Cinéma with my wife and daughter, and we all dug it.
Letterboxd is an independent service created by a small team, and we rely mostly on the support of our members to maintain our site and apps. Please consider upgrading to a Pro account—for less than a couple bucks a month, you’ll get cool additional features like all-time and annual stats pages (example), the ability to select (and filter by) your favorite streaming services, and no ads!
