Pusher (and a bit of Drive)

I’m still not sure why I didn’t write a piece about it but I thought Drive was one of the best movies…well…I guess I’ve ever seen.  I mean it’s not perfect and has its share of problems but goddamn does it have style and balls.  From the hot pink cursive credits to the gory skull crushing, I loved it all.  The track over the opening credits is particularly awesome:

As a result Nicolas Winding Refn has instantly become one of my new favorite directors.  He seems to be a bit peculiar though, which is always welcome in artists of any kind.  When Ryan Gosling recalled his first encounter with Refn in an interview he said that they drove around L.A. listening to pop music when suddenly Refn started crying and then singing at the top of his lungs while pounding his fists on his knees and exclaimed that this is what the movie is going to be, a guy driving around at night listening to pop music.  Gosling has also described Drive as, “a violent John Hughes movie fairy tale”.  I’m not sure about the latter (full disclosure: I’m a huge John Hughes fan that has a titanic sized place in my heart for his films…well most of his films anyway, man the end of his career really sucked didn’t it?) but the former is a good start of a description of the picture.

I saw this thing twice in theaters (a buddy of mine saw it three times) and I can’t remember the last time I did that (I’m pretty sure this has happened in the last ten years but I’m having trouble thinking of what movie it was).  Admittedly I thought it was good but not great the first time but the second time it blew me away.  I could focus on the parts I really liked and not be bothered so much with the parts that I didn’t.  You guys gotta see it, it’s badass as shit and incredibly well made.

So after all of that I had to go back and check out his acclaimed debut, Pusher.  It’s about a drug dealer, Frank (Kim Bodnia (Bleeder)), that gets in deep with his supplier, Milo (Zlatko Buric (2012)), for a ton of cash.  He has only a couple of days to get it or Milo’s thug, Radovan, will take his knee caps.  That’s quite a pickle if you ask me.

So it’s a basic premise that we’ve seen before but this one comes off a bit different.  Frank’s situation is bad from the start because he already owes some money to Milo even before he blows the big score that puts him eyebrows deep in debt.  So you have to assume that Milo is somewhat upset with him from the get go even though he doesn’t show it.  I mean what crime boss is going to take lightly someone not paying him his money?  I guess you would see that in a mob-boss-with-a-heart-of-gold type movie (most likely directed by Brett Ratner), but this isn’t one of them.

At every turn Frank can’t catch a break.  He tries to collect some money from people that owe him, steal other’s drugs, rob people at gunpoint, etc.  None of it goes his way.  He needs to come up with so much money that it’s hopeless.  But the way Frank goes about all of this is strange and interesting.  He doesn’t seem to be that concerned with the situation he’s in.  He takes his time trying to gather the money and continues to snort heroine and hang out with his girlfriend that he treats like shit.  I didn’t know what to make of his nonchalant attitude.  I thought either he doesn’t care what happens to him or he has an ace up his sleeve.  Well I turned out to be wrong on both accounts.  Frank doesn’t want anything to happen to him but at the same time he can’t bring himself to move quickly to get the money.  He’s his own worst enemy.

The ending was sudden and not what I expected.  I won’t give it away but I would have a totally different idea about what happened if sequels to this picture weren’t made.  But then again I haven’t seen the sequels yet so it’s still up in the air for me.

There are a lot of similarities between this and Drive.  Both involve the main character in a situation that spirals totally out of control making you doubt that he can get out of it, there’s not a terrible amount of action but when there is it’s pretty grisly, the soundtracks are cool and fitting and both have a couple of scenes that are strange but fascinating and even touching.  In Drive there’s the part where Gosling puts on a mask and peeks in on Ron Perlman at his pizza parlor laughing very hard in slow motion.  In Pusher Frank and Radovan are on their way to try and collect some money after the blown score and they talk about how Radovan doesn’t really like what he does and that he wants to open a restaurant ‘cause he makes a killer shish kabob.  They’re laughing and having a good talk even though one minute earlier Radovan tells Frank that one time he had to take out a guy’s knee caps with a knife because he didn’t pay.

Refn knows what the fuck he’s doing and this is a real strong debut for any director.  On the extras there was a documentary called Gambler that followed him around while he was trying to get financing for Pusher 2 and 3.  He says in it that it’s (and I forget the exact word that he used) a curse to have a hit for your first film because everyone sees everything else you do after that as inferior.  The doc was good by the way and very interesting because it shows the business and politics behind trying to get a film financed and made.  Refn went bankrupt after Fear X (in the doc he calls it his best film) so he needed to attract investors to get Pusher 2 off the ground.  But the Pusher 2 money would only pay his debts so he needed to make Pusher 3 to actually get some income.  It’s complicated because Refn wants to make a film that satisfies him creatively but at the same time he also needs to make something that will please his investors so they keep giving him money to make movies.  The whole process looks pretty fucked up.

The thing about both Pusher and Drive is that they’re arty but not necessarily farty.  They have attitude and conviction that walks the walk and talks the talk.  They’re so well put together that the pretentiousness melts away to reveal an endoskeleton made of masterful cinematography, great story telling and pure psychotic aggression.  I look forward to whatever Refn does in the future ‘cause he dishes out some damn good entertainment.

Scott "Razor Ramon" Hall Documentary

Too bad this wasn't a feature length doc but it's still great nonetheless.  Never knew he had gotten this bad.  Jesus, he really is the real life Randy "The Ram" Robinson from The Wrestler.

Trespass (2011)

So you have this group of thugs that break into Nic Cage and Nicole Kidman’s house.  They’re looking for diamonds ‘cause that’s what Cage deals in but of course shit doesn’t go as planned and…stuff…kind of happens, I guess.

I’ll get right to the point and say that this thing felt very lazy, by the numbers and trite.  It’s almost like the filmmakers were trying to create the blandest thriller they could devise.  The gang that breaks into the house is your typical fare filled out with a leader that appears to be ruthless but doesn’t seem to actually want to hurt anyone, his younger pretty boy brother that’s kinda dumb and gullible, a bulldog that’s hard to keep on the chain in the form of a formidable muscular dude and the leader’s girlfriend/wife that gets scared very easily and panics at the drop of a hat.  None of these characters are interesting or very threatening.  Throughout the whole film they constantly give Cage and his family one last chance to hand the diamonds over but never follow through on actually beating them or torturing them.  Well, Cage gets his hand broken at one point but that’s about it.  And it’s not enough for him to want to fork over the goods.  He’s real stubborn.

Cage is the second most disappointing thing about this picture (I’ll get to the first in a second).  He’s not over the top but I guess that fits because he’s supposed to be a stuffy prick of a business man and not Castor Troy.  And it’s not that Cage shouldn’t go for roles like this but more like he needs to make sure the plot is outrageous enough to engulf the somewhat boring character.  For instance he plays it down in Season of the Witch but it’s about him fighting supernatural creatures during the middle ages so it kinda works out alright.  With this picture it just involves him trying to stay cool under pressure while some incompetent robbers attempt to push him around without much luck.  The gross haircut and needlessly big glasses are nice touches but don’t make up for his middle of the road performance of a middle of the road character.

The greatest disappointment though is Schumacher.  He was doing so well with his new shit like Blood Creek and Twelve, both of which I thoroughly enjoyed.  That expert eye that I said he possesses in my Twelve review seems to be absent here.  This one feels more like an inexperienced director’s stab at a thriller.  Instead of cutting the bullshit to leave more meat like he had been doing it’s all bullshit with very little substance to sink your teeth into.  What the fuck was Schumacher thinking?  There’s never a lot of tension, action, suspense or believability that these bad guys are going to do shit.  I haven’t seen all of Schumacher’s films but I have seen over 50% of them and this might be the worst so far. 

This movie can be summed up by saying that it’s an inexcusable waste of Cage and Schumacher’s talents.  And also that it’s just kind of a Panic Room rip off.  I mean I thought Panic Room was kinda lame too (with the exception of Dwight Yoakam, I would love to see more movies with him as the villain) and this is a worse version of the same idea. 

It ain’t no 8MM (that was a pretty weird and cool picture) or Batman Forever (this one gets a lot of flak but I think it’s a lot of fun and really not that much worse than Batman Returns).  It’s Uninspired: The Movie.  Hopefully this is only a hiccup for Schumacher and he’ll get back into the groove with his next film.  As for Cage, he definitely has some great movies left in him (or at least great performances) and he’s not showing any signs of slowing down either.  I doubt Schumacher and Cage will cross paths again but if they do, of course, I’ll be the first in line to check it out.  I still want to see Falling Down 2.  

King of New York

I love King of New York (big surprise, right?).  It’s one of the best crime/gangster pictures ever to grace the silver screen and would be Abel Ferrara’s best movie if he didn’t follow it up with an even crazier character study in the form of Bad Lieutenant (the new Nicolas Cage, Werner Herzog one is pretty fucking amazing as well but my heart will always belong to the original).

This film is fairly well known but at the same time it gets overshadowed by others in the same genre like Donnie Brasco and Goodfellas.  Even Scarface’s little brother Carlito’s Way seems to get a lot of attention and acclaim which I don’t quite get ‘cause I didn’t think it was that great.  Maybe King of New York wasn’t mainstream enough?  I really don’t think it’s the violence considering the movies I just listed.  It’s certainly not that the movie portrays the gangster life as a grand way to live.  If anything it does a really good job of showing how fucked up both a mobster’s and rogue cop’s lives are by depicting them as a very tense and dangerous way to live.  It has a big name star (Christopher Walken), was shot masterfully and is entertaining as fuck.  I dunno.

Ferrara obviously loves New York City which is present throughout the film but what also comes through is how fucked up it is or at least was back in the 80’s and early 90’s when it came to crime.  It’s fascinating how someone can know a place so well that even when you’re shown how horrible it can be you always feel like you’re in good hands.  Ferrara knows just where and how to stage all of his scenes and who his characters are.  This picture packs a helluva punch and he molds it so it has maximum impact.  He’s an underappreciated genius in my opinion that I hope gets more recognition with time.

One of my favorite parts is when Laurence Fishburne (actually this was back in the days when he credited himself as Larry Fishburne) goes into a restaurant to order some food in the most badass way possible.  Cops David Caruso (Jade), Victor Argo (True Romance) and Wesley fucking Pipes come in to bust him but he never gives in to them or backs off on the macho talk.  Yeah man, the line about Fishburne bragging that he doesn’t leave no witnesses when he’s doin’ murder is priceless.

Since Thanksgiving is tomorrow I guess what I’m sayin’ is I’m thankful for this masterpiece.  It’s a must see for anyone into crime pictures, badass shit and/or art in general. 

All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)

World War I, or The Great War, is often overlooked and people usually go straight for the sequel World War II.  Well WWI was pretty nasty and this picture shows that in spades.

This group of young teens decides to enlist when the war breaks out thinking it’ll be glorious and awesome to kick some ass.  You know, the old let’s-show-‘em-who’s-boss attitude.  But when these guys get to the front line they realize very quickly that it’s not all it’s cracked up to be sorta like The Deer Hunter.  They witness their friends getting killed, have to put with a constant barrage of noise from gunfire and bombs and they seem to be starving most of the time because food is extremely scarce.

The battle scenes are horrific and probably the nastiest I’ve seen since the D-Day scene in Saving Private Ryan.  We’re talking 1930 here too so it made it even more shocking.  We see hundreds of men just getting slaughtered and the chaos that accompanies a charging advance in an attempt to gain some ground.  Probably the most dreadful image is of one guy’s hands that are still clenched to a piece of barbed wire while the rest of his body has been blown away.

It’s a helluva anti-war statement and a really great gritty film.  Oh and one little thing I left out is that this is from a German’s point of view.  It’s an American film but it doesn’t matter which side they show, the point is that war is terrible and people are getting fucked up on both sides.  The German soldiers don’t know why they’re really there and I would imagine most people from all countries fighting in those trenches didn’t either.  It was just something that their country told them to do so they did it.

This is without a doubt one of the best war films I’ve ever seen.  It’s not afraid to pull punches and show how fucking awful it is.  

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines

Spoilers ‘n shit

Carolco Pictures (along with two other production companies) made Terminator 2 in 1991.  The mega producer owners Mario Kassar and Andrew Vajna wanted to continue with the series but Showgirls and Cutthroat Island bankrupted them.  So they bought back the rights to the Terminator series at auction and regrouped to form C2 Pictures.  A few years later we got Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.  A ballsy move considering it doesn’t involve anyone that had anything to do with the first two Terminators except Arnold Schwarzenegger and Stan Winston.  And the result is…well…really good.

Let’s start with the cast.  Nick Stahl (The Man Without a Face) plays the grown up John Connor.  He’s become a paranoid drifter that wants to believe that he and his mother Sarah Connor (now dead and therefore does not appear in the film) avoided judgment day.  But he knows in his heart that shit still doesn’t seem right.  He doesn’t have a cell phone or try and make contact with anyone he knows or go anyplace that will keep a record of his name or existence.  You know, just in case another terminator goes back in time and tries to kill him…again.  Well that strategy doesn’t really work because a terminator does get sent back in time and finds him easily.  Admittedly the new terminator sort of stumbles upon him but it had a good idea of where to look so it wasn’t a total shot in the dark.  Anyway, Stahl is actually really great in this role and makes me wonder why we don’t see more of him in mainstream movies.  He really conveys the conflicted emotions about him kind of wanting the war hero and leader stuff to be true but at the same time he doesn’t want to be burdened with it all.  I mean imagine if someone told you that one day you’ll possibly be the most important human ever to have lived because you prevented your race from being wiped out by machines.  And you know that it’s really going to happen because you’ve witnessed yourself two killing machines from the future battle it out over you.  That’s some heavy shit to lay on a kid even if it wasn’t true but because you have proof that it’ll actually happen has got to fuck with you.  Again, I’m getting all of this from Stahl.  I can feel he’s being tortured and has had to put up with it almost all his life.  The scariest parts for him might be the years in between Terminator 2 and 3 because after a while he might think that he’s going crazy, especially after judgment day was supposed to have passed.  When the terminators show up again he’s in a state of panic but at least he knows what’s going on and can rest assured that it wasn’t just all in his mind or something.  This character is really complex and it’s interesting to see him grown up because we get to see how John Connor has taken all of this in over the years and what he thinks of it now.  In Terminator 2 he didn’t have time to process this stuff because his mother was there to tell him what was what and the situation with the terminators was so immediate that he had to either get with the program or be killed.  There’s no time for second thoughts.  In Terminator 3 he handles things a little differently.  John Connor becomes so desperate and overwrought with the state of affairs that he threatens to kill himself at one point proclaiming that he doesn’t want any part of his destiny.  This more or less fits with part 2 and now that he’s older we see that he still doesn’t think he’s some hotshot hero.  He just wants to be left alone. 

Stahl may seem unassuming but I think that’s part of the point.  Do you buy that Edward Furlong is supposed to be the future leader of mankind?  Yeah, not really but that’s just it.  It’s about greatness coming from within and it’s the same with Stahl.  I think he’s just unassuming enough to work.  He’s not some obvious big brawny dude, pretty boy model or total nerd with geeky glasses and a pocket calculator.  He’s just the right balance of misfit and average Joe.  The only weird part that comes up though is when he thinks Arnold is the same terminator from T2.  John Connor was there when that T-800 killed himself in molten metal.  But other than that it’s a great performance.

Kristanna Loken (BloodRayne) is the new evil terminator called the T-X.  This movie follows the tradition of the series of casting a relative unknown as the villain.  Ok, ok Schwarzenegger did Conan the Barbarian right before The Terminator and that was successful but it was the Terminator role that made him a mega star.  Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how much you like the following actors) Robert Patrick and Kristanna Loken did not shoot to superstardom after their portrayals of terminators from the future.  Anyway, Loken does fine here.  She plays a machine well, pretty much never showing emotion.  I thought it was nice to have a female terminator this time too.  I mean a good ol’ macho fest is always welcome around these parts but I think it’s a good change of pace for the series.

Claire Danes (Brokedown [sic] Palace) is Kate Brewster and she’s the audience representation this time around (Edward Furlong took that job in T2).  She doesn’t know what’s going on and does a lot of wide eyed shocked staring.  Surprisingly Brewster is not annoying here and it’s because of her redeeming qualities towards the end of the film.  She shoots down a flying killer robot and pilots a plane that allows her and John to escape the city.  So if you think Kate is just some dumb broad that they threw in there to scream at everything then think again.  Well she does do that for two thirds of the film but the fact is she helps out in more important ways than one so that means I like her.  She may not be Sarah “balls to the wall” Connor but Kate just learned about all this shit and has less than 24 hours to get her act together so I cut her some slack.

That just leaves the terminator himself, Arnie.  How does he stack up this time twelve years later?  Well this is definitely the least threatening he’s been in this role.  He said that he beefed up for the part and even got back to his dimensions when he did T2 but I don’t know if it’s the way he was shot or the digital terminators that were inserted into some of the action scenes that were messing with me or the lighting or something else ‘cause he sure doesn’t look as big or downright menacing this time.  He still moves alright but you can tell he’s older and it feels like he didn’t put as much effort into it for this installment.  It could be Jonathan Mostow’s direction or maybe that has nothing to do with it.  I dunno.  It’s still nice to see Arnie as the terminator though and it’s good that he took up the role one last time before he got too old.  I’ll admit it’s borderline here but I think he pulls it off well enough.

Now on to the action and man does this movie deliver.  It starts out with a little back story, a small update of events and characters and then we move into the plot proper.  The T-X starts killing John Connor’s future lieutenants first instead of just going for the main target which is really smart and I’m glad the machines adjusted their strategy this time ‘cause after failing two previous times wouldn’t you change your tactics too?  And getting some of those other commanders out of the way should change the war at least a little bit.  But when the T-X goes after Kate Brewster (who’s with John Connor) the real battle begins.  The terminators duke it out on the streets, in an office building, in a cemetery and etc.  There are two big chunks of action, one towards the beginning and one towards the end, with a smaller (but still awesome) action chunk in the middle.  All of it has such a grand scope to it and that’s what I like to see in a Terminator picture.  None of the action scenes are bad in my opinion either.  But the shining crown jewel that this movie offers is the first car chase (yeah, there are two).  John and Kate are in a Toyota pickup truck, Arnie starts on a police motorcycle and moves to a fire truck, the T-X has police cars and an ambulance under remote control (that’s the new gimmick this one has) but the T-X itself  is on a giant motherfuckin’ crane truck.  I don’t know what the proper name for it is but it’s a fucking crane on a goddamn truck that looks like it’s at least twice the size of a fire truck.  And this thing does so much damage it’s unfathomable.  The whole chase scene is a beautiful piece of art and alone makes this film worth watching.

The other really great scene is the mano a mano fight between the T-800 and the T-X.  They beat the shit out of each other and the surrounding building.  It mostly takes place in a bathroom and they use it well by smashing urinals on each other, smashing through toilets, smashing through stall walls and just a lot of other smashing in general.  It’s a real smash fight. 

There are, inevitably (it’s a third installment after all), some bad things in here.  First, the look of this one is lighter, slicker and glossier than the previous films.  Pretty much the entire movie takes place during the day and in less than 24 hours as opposed to the previous two which were set (if memory serves) mostly at night and over the span of a couple of days.  I like the 24 hour bit but the daytime thing definitely isn’t as cool, either looking or feeling.  There’s a lot of CGI in this too.  Some of it doesn’t look terrible but most of it is kinda bad and you all know by now how I feel about CGI so I don’t think I need to expand on it.  I wish they would’ve used the Terminator theme but we don’t hear it until the end credits which is kinda weird and inexcusable.  But the worst aspect of this movie is the humor.  Just about all of the bad jokes are by Schwarzenegger too.  There’s the strip club scene where he gets his signature outfit, the star shaped sunglasses that he initially puts on, the “talk to the hand” sass that he gives to the gas station guy, the part where he tells Kate to relax (you have to see it to get it) and others.  They’re all very unfunny and unwarranted.  There was a little bit of humor in the first two Terminators but not much so it’s not like it’s tradition for the series to crack a bunch of bad jokes.  It’s a shame and too bad that the filmmakers couldn’t help themselves.  And that’s my biggest beef with this thing, stupid fucking jokes in an otherwise serious action film.

So all in all I think this Terminator kicks ass.  In fact I think the first Terminator is only slightly better and I would kind of rather watch this one most times.  It’s like Alien and Aliens.  I guess Alien really is the better picture but if you ask me which one I would rather watch at any given moment there’s a 90% chance that I’m gonna say, “Aliens”.  The Terminator is good ‘n all but it has just a little too much down time and it doesn’t have that amazing car chase sequence with a crane truck.  I mean don’t get me wrong, Terminator 2 is by far the best one.  It’s a masterpiece and I don’t know if there’s such a thing as a perfect film but fuck it, it’s a perfect film.  No other Terminator movie is going to beat it, ever.  In fact a lot of movies aren’t going to beat it. 

How badass does this look?

But Terminator 3 is pretty great for what it is.  It’s one last hurrah for Arnie and the series proper (I thought Terminator Salvation was just ok and less interesting than when the terminators exist in our time battling it out).  I can understand people getting tired of seeing basically the same story as the first two installments but goddamn is it a great premise.  These films made the most out of the idea of two virtually indestructible robots from the future going head to head.  I know most of you out there think that T2 wrapped up things nicely and that there’s no need for a third film but I think it fits right in there.  I especially dig the solemn ending (a Mostow trademark) with the beautiful imagery of the nukes going off and the idea that judgment day is inevitable.  This one makes a bigger deal out of destiny than the other two and I like that idea.  No matter what you do, if you’re destined to do something then it’s gonna happen whether you like it or not so you can either fight it or make the most of it.  I think that’s fitting for this movie.  Hollywood makes a ton of sequels and in the early 2000’s it seemed inevitable that there would be another Terminator picture so you can either try and pretend that it doesn’t exist or saddle up for one last ride.  I say “ride, postman!”  Uh, I mean…whatever just see it.  It’s awesome.

Side note: I saw The Hidden recently and there was something about it that was bugging me but I couldn’t put my finger on it.  Then while watching T3 this last time I realized that it was a Terminator rip off.  Just instead of robots it’s aliens.                    

Breakdown

Spoilers all over this piece

You know, if you stop and think about the scheme that J.T. Walsh (Blue Chips), M.C. Gainey (Con Air), Jack Noseworthy (Event Horizon) and that grizzled ol’ prospector type guy cook up in Breakdown isn’t that smart.  Their idea of a good plan is to pick out some random guy, couple or family that looks wealthy, stick ‘em up and have them fork over their dough that they’ve got in the bank.  I see one major problem with this scenario and that is that you don’t know if these people actually have money.  There’s also the risk that you might fuck with the wrong person.  I mean the guy you’re robbing could whip out a gun of their own and start shootin’ or be someone too high profile to rob and a whole shit storm could come down on your head.  But that last possibility is a stretch so I’m gonna focus on the first point that I made.

This gang of truckers is taking a huge stab in the dark with their method.  It’s not efficient or particularly competent.  They go through a lot of trouble but don’t know what the stakes are.  Sure it’s possible that they could get lucky and nab a million bucks but the more likely scenario is that they’re gonna get a fairly unimpressive amount.  Now the movie does make the point that just because someone looks like they might have a lot of money doesn’t necessarily make it so.  Kurt Russell and Kathleen Quinlan don’t really have the $90,000 they say they do but Russell wears a polo shirt, khakis and drives a new (1997) Jeep so the bad guys make the mistake of judging a book by its cover. 

And as thoughtless and reckless as the plan the truckers have is what may be even more bizarre is the way they carry it out.  They sabotage Russell’s car so that it’ll go on the fritz when he’s in the middle of nowhere, southwest USA.  Walsh then comes along to try and lure them into his truck so he can kidnap them but only Russell’s wife gets in.  Walsh tells him to meet him at a diner down the road but he’s not there so Russell goes to the police and even runs into Walsh who denies everything and then there’s this young guy that tells Russell he knows something about his wife and on and on and on.  It doesn’t make any sense to have all this run around.  It only gets the police involved and Russell even almost gets away at one point.  These truckers really shot themselves in the foot with this one. 

Director and writer Jonathan Mostow must have realized that this was kind of a stupid way to go about robbing someone because he even has one of his bad guys ask the other why he didn’t just pull a gun on the couple and force both of them into the truck.  But the reasoning that the bad guy gives is that Russell would’ve ran out into the desert instead of complying.  This makes absolutely no sense to me.  Russell is broken down miles from the nearest phone, he doesn’t get cell phone reception, there are no cars around (we never see anyone else pass them while they’re broke down), the cops are nowhere to be found, it’s not like it would’ve taken very long to whip a gun out and tell them to get in the truck and the gang would’ve taken them by surprise.  And I really doubt that Russell is going to run away when a gun is put in his face.  It’s way simpler with less to go wrong.  Instead there’s this whole mystery of Russell’s wife disappearing and Walsh denying he had ever seen them before. 

Of course this is all in the name of cinema and that’s why there’s this convoluted plot.  The truckers allude to ripping off many others before but it’s amazing that these guys got anyone’s money at all.  You really need to do some research before you have someone empty their bank account.  You should make sure there’s enough there to make it worth your while ‘cause you’re breaking some serious laws in my opinion like kidnapping and murder. 

Overall though, the movie isn’t that bad.  When you watch it the first time it’s really exciting actually because you don’t know what the hell’s going on.  Aside from the first time viewing thing the cast is pretty great and there are some really cool moments like the car chase at the end, the creepy cellar where Walsh keeps his victims and the really awesome scene where Russell gets his revenge on Gainey by duct taping his neck to the headrest of the truck and making sudden stops choking him.  I remember when I saw this picture in theaters the audience cheered and applauded during that part.

Once you know what’s going on your first thought will be, “wait, that was an overly complicated plot that the truckers had and could’ve been handled in a much better way”, but the second thought will be, “damn this movie just got really fun”.  Really the whole ending of the picture is kinda spectacular.  I mean there’s a duel on a truck that’s dangling off the side of a bridge.  I also like the way it fades to the credits with the eerily slow and quiet soundtrack playing.  That’s great mood.  It’s similar to how Mostow ends Terminator 3 (which makes me want to go back and check out that film again). 

But what I’ll remember this movie for most is the “fuck you”, “no fuck you!” exchange between Gainey and Russell.  It’s up there for me in badass moments.