However, the idea behind Gone in 60 seconds is anything but fresh – it is in fact a remake of the hapless 1974 movie of the same title that was directed by (and starred) the late H.B. Halicki. Halicki died while making his sequel ‘Gone in 60 Seconds II’ (it was never released), but the Halicki connection is kept alive in the new version with his widow being credited as an executive producer.
Randall ‘Memphis’ Raines (Nicolas Cage) is a retired car thief who is pulled back into the game when his little brother Kip (Giovanni Ribisi) fails to deliver to the local black market dealer, Raymond Calitri (Christopher Eccleston). Six years ago Memphis left friends and family behind when he retired from the business that would have either ‘seen him in jail or killed or both’, so it is understandable that he’s a bit reluctant to return to his previous life of crime and debauchery.
Even though he looks pretty content teaching little kids to race around dusty outback pits, his passion for cars is still evident (the man listens to tape recordings of Formula 1 racing cars warming up, for Pete’s sake) and after all, his kid brother’s life is on the line. He takes his moral dilemma to mom, who okay’s it with an unnecessary guilt trip: it’s because Kip looked up to his older brother that he got involved in car theft in the first place.
The job: to steal 50 vintage and very expensive cars or Kip gets squashed in a compressor. Memphis calls on his old buddy, and one time mentor, Otto Halliwell (a spirited Robert Duvall) to assemble a motley crew of old hands, (including English football star Vinnie Jones who returns to the screen as the silent tough guy ‘The Sphinx’ – a role very similar to the tough yet philosophical one he played in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels) as well as Kip’s talented group of youngsters (Scott Caan and William Lee Scott among them).
The band of thieves decide to ‘go old school’ on the job, which basically means ‘a day to shop, a day to prep’ and then to steal the lot in a one night surprise attack that will hopefully leave the police none the wiser.
Also included in the team is Sway (Angelina Jolie), Memphis’ one time lover. Sway also went on the straight and narrow (albeit not in time to catch up with Memphis) and is now holding down two jobs after discovering that making an honest living is a lot harder than stealing cars. (Don’t go thinking that she has fallen into humdrum suburbia mode though – the honest life has not softened Sway one bit – she is still the tough broad of yesteryear who drinks her Jack straight up and has a rather make-shift set of blonde dreadlocks.)
Unfortunately, the talented Jolie has amazingly little to do other than to sport her tattoos, pout and well, pout. She also repeats her finger sucking scene we thought she had already perfected in ‘Pushing Tin’.
‘Gone In 60 Seconds’ is formula-driven and straight out of the Jerry Bruckheimer stable (Bad Boys, Armageddon). Unfortunately director Dominic Sena (Kalifornia) does not quite have the masterful hand of Frankenheimer and the major car chase in ‘Gone In 60 Seconds’ relies more on the kind of quick cutting made popular in music videos. On the upside, Cage is at his eccentric best and is given plenty of scope to act aloof and haughty. He single handedly turns an otherwise dull action movie into a must-see.