U Turn
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Movie Reviews of U Turn
Movie Review: U-Turn
Summary: 5 Stars
The movie "U-Turn" is smartly done, leaving the viewer up in the air, never knowing what to expect next. It is a great movie & should not be missed!Movie Review: Movie Review
Summary: 5 Stars
The CD was everything I wanted & expected. I'll be looking for more titles of movies on Amazon soon!Movie Review: One of my favorite movies
Summary: 5 Stars
I can see this movie over and over again. And never get tired of it.Movie Review: "40,000 people die every day, Darrell. How come you're not one of 'em?"
Summary: 4 Stars
I haven't seen all of Oliver Stone's movies, but of the ones I have seen, they've either been hit or miss propositions. I liked The Doors (1991) despite the pretension, but I really didn't care that much for Natural Born Killers (1994), his dysfunctional ode to America's love of spoon-fed violence (Stone decided if we wanted it that bad, he'd feed it to us with a shovel)...regardless of my predilections towards the director himself (personally, I think the guy is batty go nuts), he does manage to entertain, that is if you have the stomach for it...U Turn (1997), directed by Oliver Stone (Platoon, Wall Street, Born on the Fourth of July), stars Sean Penn (Colors, Carlito's Way), Nick Nolte (48 Hrs., Blue Chips), and Jennifer Lopez (Maid in Manhattan, Gigli). Also appearing is Powers Boothe (Sin City), Claire Danes (Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines), Joaquin Phoenix (Gladiator), Billy Bob Thornton (Bad Santa), and Jon Voight (The Karate Dog, National Treasure).
As the film begins we see a man, played by Penn (we later learn his name is Bobby) driving a lonely desert road, and he seems to be getting a little punchy, like one tends to get spending too much time behind the wheel. After his car blows a hose, he pulls into the town of Superior, AZ, which had definitely seen better days (the first person he meets is Darrell, a greasy mechanic whose probably never seen a better day). Anyway, while he's waiting for his car to be repaired, he wanders into town, unknowingly looking for trouble, finding it in short, orange dress answering to the name of Grace (Lopez). After giving her some assistance, she offers him a lift, to which they go back to her large house for a bit of the flirting which leads to the kissing...which is right about the time Grace's husband, Jake (Nolte) comes home...and he's none to pleased to see what he's seeing. After things get sorted out, Jake gives Bobby a lift back to town along with a proposal to kill his wife. Bobby wonders is he's serious, and Jake sloughs it off as a sort of joke...soon afterwards Bobby finds himself the victim of a serious of events that have now left him stranded in the town in serious need of funds (he owes big time to a Russian loan shark, who just happens to be sending an emissary to ensure prompt payment, or prompt removal of certain body parts). Anyway, Bobby decides to take Jake up on his offer, but the follow through is too difficult, especially with the presentation of a better offer, one from Grace for Bobby to kill Jake, steal his fat stash of hidden cash, and run off together...all right, with all this talk of killing someone has got to die, but who, and by whom? It's a twisty, downward spiral of anger, betrayal, deception, and chicanery, eventually leading to murder and a whole lot of bad mojo...as the annoying blind man says, `Nothing is as it seems.'
First of all, if you've ever wanted to see Sean Penn get the beating (I did, as I'm still smarting from his 1986 stinker Shanghai Surprise), this is the movie for you...I'd swear the character can't go ten minutes without someone beating on him or talking about beating on him...which really isn't all that surprising as his character is a smarmy low level crook with a smart mouth, which he plays really well. As far as the others, Nolte's character of Jake seemed pretty nasty but almost sympathetic in a twisted way, that is until certain revelations came to light and then he was just downright icky (if you've seen the film you'll know what I mean)...as far as Ms. Lopez, I still think her best work was in the film Out of Sight (1998), but she does well here (I'm not just saying this because she had a couple of nekkid shots in the film, although they didn't hurt none). As far as the rest of the cast, they all did well, with a few standouts like Voight and Thornton. First of all, I didn't even recognize Voight under his make-up and prosthetics as the aged blind man expelling forth a steady stream of streetwise mystical mumbo jumbo (seems you can't have a Stone film without this element). And then there's Billy Bob as the greasiest, dirty, filthy, rancid, grimy mechanic I've ever seen, complete with fat gut protruding from a strained t-shirt. His character was a riot, adding a good dose of humor to an otherwise disturbing film (well, I wasn't all that disturbed, but then I'm cynical as hell). One of my favorite scenes involves Bobby trying to negotiate with Darrell, with Bobby is trying to pass off a $7,800 Movado watch to which Darrell claims is pretty useless because it doesn't even got any numbers on the face, comparing it to his $3.75 Casio watch that has all kinds of features, including a built in calculator. Oh, I almost forgot Danes as the town jailbait and her hyper jealous boyfriend played by Joaquin Phoenix (you gotta see this guy to believe him). I thought overall the story moved along really well, managing to keep a complicated tale of treachery pretty easy to follow, even providing a few, wicked surprises, full of sharp, quotable dialog. It may not offer anything in the sense of being original, but the fun is in the telling, which kept things interesting for the viewer. Make no mistake, this is a dirty, rotten, messed up world Stone puts forth which I don't mind visiting, but I wouldn't want to stay there. I mean here you have Bobby...okay, he's a crook with a shady past...but his résumé' never included murder, that is until his stay in Superior...the town, like an entity unto itself, steeped in stagnant desperation, saw an opportunity in him and proceeded to sink their slavering mandibles into this unsuspecting schmuck before he could realize the danger and escape, which did make him a sort of sympathetic character, despite the fact he wasn't necessarily a `good guy'...but then that's just my opinion. I should also mention the music, which seemed odd at times, was composed, orchestrated, and conducted by Ennio Morricone, the man behind the classic themes from A Fistful of Dollars (1964), Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), and The Untouchables (1987), to name a few. All in all I'd agree with others who stated this was a very good, albeit dark, Oliver Stone presentation of a contemporary noir.
This DVD features both the wide screen (1.85:1) and pan and scan formats of the film, and the picture is sharp and clean. The audio, available in Dolby Digital 5.1 along with Dolby Digital 2,0 Surround comes through well. There's not much in the way of special features, as all that is included is a theatrical trailer and liner notes printed on an insert in the DVD case.
Cookieman108
Movie Review: Ridley + Stone + Penn = serious rock 'n roll.
Summary: 4 Stars
U Turn (Oliver Stone, 1997)
I'm a big fan of Stray Dogs, the John Ridley novel upon which U-Turn is based, and I avoided the film for while because, really, how many film adaptations of your best-loved novels actually work the way you want them to? I shouldn't have worried, though; U-Turn is the stuff, most decidedly.
The plot: Bobby Cooper, an on-the-run tennis pro (Sean Penn) has his car conk out on him just shy of a very, very weird little desert town. One of its residents, Grace McKenna (Jennifer Lopez), immediately catches his eye, but he soon finds out she's married to a nasty old character named Jake (Nick Nolte), who'd just as soon see her dead-- and offers Bobby fifty grand to do the deed. Immediately, a complex web of deceit unfurls among all the characters, complicated by a number of even stranger events happening at just the wrong time to make Bobby's life miserable.
The main thing that sticks out about this movie is the caliber of its cast, and the caliber of the performances they give. When you have to stick Jon Voight and Billy Bob Thornton seventh and eighth in credits order, you've got a high-powered cast working for you. All of them are spot on. The plot moves forward at almost blinding speed (just as it did in the book; Ridley adapted his own novel), and the viewer has very little time to do anything but clench his teeth and hang on for the ride until the final credits roll. It's just plain fun. I'm not sure why I stopped watching Oliver Stone flicks in the late eighties (okay, yeah I am-- Born on the Fourth of July, The Doors, and JFK back to back got a little heavy in to the world of way-out conspiracy theory for me), but I'm glad I've started again. *** ½