Bullitt is still the car-chase movie. Gone In 60 Seconds is just a car-chase movie, which comes with a cautionary yellow-flag warning.
Motorheads and stick-shifters should not get all geared up over this expensive remake of the '70s cornball chase-flick.
The full-throttle, hide-and-seek, cops-and-robbers extravaganza featuring Nicolas Cage grinding it out in a '67 Shelby Mustang GT 500 is okay, but not wow-inspiring.
For chase freaks, that 'stang sequence represents a too-little, too-late kind of thing.
Prior to that, there is a lot of he-said, she-said talk and not enough drive.
Let's face it, the plot is an excuse for showing off the wheels.
Cage plays a former car thief who has to steal 50 cars in one night or his brother (Giovanni Ribisi) gets whacked by a nasty hoodlum.
Angela Jolie shows up as a car-crook pal of Cage's Memphis Raines, a legendary Long Beach, Calif., car thief who returns to the scene of his crimes to save his brother. Robert Duvall co-stars as a former chop-shop mechanic willing to help.
Chi McBride is another grand-theft auto artist by the name of Kenny who supplies some personality and much-needed comic relief. Vinnie Jones, who was Big Chris in Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels, gets a few giggles as the almost silent Sphinx.
A mostly serious Cage gets most of the focus, which means you can spend lots of time looking at his blond hair weave. But Jolie does him one better with a bleachy-dread look. Both are trying to be quirky but come across on the goofy side of crazy.
Gone In 60 Seconds seems to be trying hard, as well. Sometimes, it's too many things at once.
The mix 'n' match worked before for Cage and producer Jerry Bruckheimer.
In fact, Bruckheimer seems to be coaxing and coaching director Dominic Sena into previous Cage-Bruckheimer familiar territory. That would be the high-concept Con Air and The Rock, in which action, adventure, and a few chase routines were tossed into the love and loyalty themes with Cage's hero saving the day in the end.
Gone In 60 Seconds uses that multi-faceted device, but doesn't have the sharp dialogue to pull it off. Scott Rosenberg's script is written like an afterthought, after no thoughts came.
There's something else. Two cops (Delroy Lindo and Timothy Olyphant) investigating the car thefts keep showing up like annoying speed bumps on a quarter-mile straightaway.
Worse? The need for speed is almost ignored at the start and in the middle. Forget about a few, teasing maniac motor moments.
And all sorts of mighty machines are displayed -- a Plymouth Roadrunner, a Dodge Viper, a Ferrari Testarosa, a Lamborghini LM SUV. None of them gets cranked up.
What a waste for an apparent car-chase flick.
Cage, at the climax, doing manoeuvres in his showpiece 260-cubic-inch GT, with most of the cop force after him, didn't overly thrill either.
That bit might not even make the top 20 car-chase sequences of all time, let alone challenge Bullitt or The French Connection scenes.
Gone In 60 Seconds is better than something. It's better than nothing -- on the car-chase front.
(This film is rated PG)
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