Deadline Auto Theft

This film is nothing more than a re-cut version of Halicki's 1974 classic Gone in 60 Seconds, but the end result is actually pretty good, if not sadly misleading. Those who are expecting this to be a new film will be disappointed. The film, at least, offers a lengthy opening car chase scene, which I suspect that some of it was actually cut from Halicki's previous movie The Junkman, with pretty good crashes. The film also offers new footage featuring Hoyt Axton as the blustery Captain Gibbs, who promises to nail Halicki to put an end to the car thefts in the city, and Dan Grimaldi as Gibb's whiny future son-in-law whose priceless Bricklin is stolen in the film's opening scene. Axton and Grimaldi add a lot of comedy to the new scenes, particularly where Axton reprimands and berates a bumbling group of detectives at the impound yard.

Though it doesn't necessarily count as a new film, you might get some joy out of this one.

One scene in the film shows an auto dealer billboard at his Buick Dealership saying "'73 model clearance, save $$$" I would say the person that commented it was a 1974 film that had scenes added would be correct. If you look at the cars in the film none are newer than 1974. Don't know how they came up with a 1983 release date unless it was released that year and was 10 years later than it was made. A great chase movie with real mayors and city folks in the movie. Don't think you could film that chase scene today with insurance and all. I used to live down in Torrance, CA and recognized the area and streets they used during the filming.

Or so touts the original trailer for the film. In director H.B. Halicki's previous movie, "The Junkman", Christopher Stone says he was "not excited" by the first three minutes of "Gone in 60 Seconds", and is thus doing reshoots. Here we have the result. "Gone in 60 Seconds" has been ripped apart, a lot of old stuff thrown away and new scenes inserted, including an entire new opening, parts of which can be seen in "The Junkman".

The new opening and additional scenes are actually really good. However, they pretty-much have nothing to do with the rest of the film. Well, they do, but not in a way that if you got rid of them and just kept the old "Gone in 60 Seconds", it would make a difference. Hoyt Axton steals the show, but unfortunately disappears towards the end. His daughter's fiancé's car is stolen at the start, and we get numerous "hell-bent" speeches on how he is determined to catch master thief Maindrian Pace, but come the big pursuit at the end, he is nowhere to be found, apart from a couple of quick scenes in a helicopter, and when he saves the day for the hapless car wash manager who is wrongly accused.

I guess the only thing to really discuss are the new scenes. For those who have seen the original "Gone in 60 Seconds", everything is still there, apart from a lot of shaved footage. The new Queen Mary chase at the start is very entertaining, but unfortunately the detectives in the pursuit are portrayed as goofy and stupid, much to the cliché. In "Gone in 60 Seconds" and "The Junkman", the police certainly crashed during chases, but the crashes were believable and real. In "Deadline Auto Theft", they seem to crash just for the sake of action, and most of the crashes are stupid and corny. Three cars in a row flying over an embankment and into boats to avoid a stationary Kombi? Not to mention the ridiculous "shortcut" taken by two cops in the LA riverbed, where they end up stalled over the drainage channel and have another unmarked car hit them and overturn.

It was wonderful to see Sgt. Hawkins from "Gone in 60 Seconds" back and involved in the new scenes. However, where he was a hard-ass cop in that film, his new scenes here portray him as just as goofy and stupid as the rest. I was unhappy to see him uncredited yet again, and would love to know who played him. A great actor!

"Deadline Auto Theft" is certainly worth a look. Hell, I really enjoyed it. There is one glaring problem, though, and that is that the new scenes were filmed in 1982, while "Gone in 60 Seconds" came out in 1974. So fashions and vehicles are completely different, and one would wonder why the hell Maindrian and pals dress like fools and the Long Beach PD drive 1968 Plymouth Belvederes, when at the start everything is post 1976. Try to ignore that and you'll be fine!

This is not a sequel to "Gone in 60 seconds". It is actually the same old 1974 film with new scenes inserted (apparently filmed at the same time as "The Junkman"). This sometimes look a bit strange, since some of the 1974 footage is rather scratched. What I find most curious about this film is that I have never found it in any movie encyclopedia. Not even Leonard Maltin mentions this alternate version in his review of the original Gone in 60 Seconds.

What a rip-off! Deadline Auto Theft is actually the original Gone in 60 Seconds with some very minor editing. It is well established that Gone in 60 Seconds 2 is unfinished and this shows the stunt sequences that would have been in that film. That amounts to about 33 minutes of car chases with no storyline to speak of. If you've seen the original Gone in 60 Seconds, acquiring this film will be an extraordinary waste of time unless for some reason you insist on seeing the complete Halicki body of work, in which case, the special features are quite nice. Everyone else should rent this, or the original Gone in 60 Seconds, not both.