Sep 18
Gone in 60 Seconds
“If stealing cars doesn’t work out, I plan to convert this place into an AppleBee’s”
I learned to drive a stick on my 69 Camaro back in the late 80’s. I was 16 and felt indestructible but really had no business being behind the wheel of such a fine tuned performance machine. Luckily my Dad trusted me that I wouldn’t wrap the bumper around a tree and took me out on a back road for some driving lessons in humility. This was so just woodland creatures could point and laugh. I stalled and stopped quite a few times before getting that engine to actually push the car down the road. Once I did, I realized the thrill of a driving a street machine so I was hooked and never looked back. But my how times have changed, now I drive a mini-van and attend PTA meetings. So soccer mom’s best watch out for the mini-van man cruiser.
Vickinski certainly didn’t need driving lessons in gone in 60 Seconds. This original 40 minute chase extravaganzas with 58 minutes of horrible b-movie schlock padding. Vickinski is a professional car thief played by the multi talent H.B. Halicki. HB directed, produced, wrote, distributed and starred in this giant ad for effective car collision insurance. I think he even did the catering. The deal is his team of car thieves have to steal 46 cars for some insurance scams, one of which is a 1973 Mustang Mach 1, which they’ve codenamed Eleanor. Eleanor seemed to be all around town though. The city apparently has more Yellow 73 mustangs per capita than any other city in the world. They’re standard issued to people like the Peter Frampton Comes Alive album.
So Vickinski gets multiple chances to steal the mean muscle machine and eventually succeeds but somehow forgets to disable it’s car alarm. So the cops with their superior observation skills start chasing him…and chasing him…and oh yeah more chasing. Hundred’s of cars are trashed, crashed, and burned. Lawsuits are being filed everywhere. The Mustang takes quite a beating as well but keeps on going like an Energizer bunny on crack. If Ford Motors built cars like that today maybe they wouldn’t be begging on the street for spare change.
It’s funny seeing the pedestrians standing around in the film as they’re obviously there to just to watch a movie getting filmed. Especially look the big jump finale for a huge crowd on the hillside. Did they pay for tickets to that event? I guess the director wants us to believe large groups of people congregate randomly near highways for potential traffic accidents.
This was a great film if you can endure the first half of porn-actor quality acting and constant Polish ethnic slandering but as soon as that Mustang revs it’s engine, get ready for a ride.
Keep an eye out for…
- chop shop wall-o-porn
- gratuitous use of polish slurs
- road-sweeper sized sideburns
- car crusher kung-fu
- towed! in 60 seconds
- the fast and the frizzy hairstyles
- boat sized pimp cars
- flour bag o-rama
“The hair-do’s in this movies were so large that the actors looked like frizzy oranges on toothpicks.”
rated 8.1 out of 10 for the movie
Check out the trailer for Gone in 60 Seconds
Outstanding movie, dude!
It is pretty tedious in the moments leading up to the chase but the last 40 minutes make it all worth it. H.B Halicki may have no idea what he was doing making a movie, but that chase at the end is one of the best I’ve ever seen, it has great editing yet no one has ever heard of this movie!
Yeah I loved this movie for the last 40 minutes as well. Let me know if you have any other recommendations on good chase films.
Sorry for all the typos in my review. I wrote it way too late and rushed it way too fast. I think I fixed most of them now.
You need to see Taxi, like, today.
Avoid the American remake like the plague and look for the original french production. Written by Luc Besson it features great driving and sweet Euro-sport cars. Like most Besson quickies, it’s short on plot but what it does have for a story is funny and worthwhile.