U Turn - Ici commence l'enfer

"U Turn" seems to be a movie that not many people have enjoyed and I really wonder why that is. I'm not saying that it was the best movie ever, but it sure deserves better than what most people over here say about it.

The story starts with Bobby Cooper (Sean Penn), driving somewhere in the middle of the desert in Arizona, on his way to pay the bookies that have already taken two of his fingers because he was too late to pay them. His car breaks down and the only option that he has is to leave the main road and to go to a small, dusty town called Superior. In this town live all kind of weird people. A blind Indian who doesn't do much else but drinking Dr. Pepper on a bench, next to his dead dog; a dumb garage owner; a young macho, called T.N.T, who seems to come straight from the fifties and his nymphomaniac girlfriend... Bobby Cooper wants to get out of there as quickly as possible. But he has one problem. He's got no money because he was robbed and the mechanic charges him an enormous price for the repairs. He can't do anything else but to stay in the village, to try to live with these weird people and to stay out of the hands of the bookies until he has found some money...

I must say that I was quite surprised by this movie. The way everything was shot is really well done and the music (composed and selected by Ennio Morricone) gives it all an extra touch. Even all the acting was very convincing. With people like Sean Penn, Billy Bob Thornton, Joaquin Phoenix and Nick Nolte I don't expect anything less than a good performance. But it has to be said: Jennifer Lopez, who certainly isn't a great actress, was actually pretty good in this movie.

All in all this is a very good movie, plenty of dark humor, good acting and some very nice shots. Personally I think this is one of Oliver Stone's finer movies and that's why I give it a 7.5/10.

U-Turn is about a man named Bobby Cooper (Sean Penn) who is on his way to pay a debt to a gangster when his car breaks down in the small, redneck town of Superior. There, Bobby is taken advantage of by the good IL' boys in every way possible, from the dirty mechanic to the town sheriff. He meets a beautiful girl named Grace (Jennifer Lopez) and falls for her, and she seemingly falls for him as well. From here, there are twists and turns in the plot all the way to the very end of the movie.

Sean Penn was decent as Bobby, but seemed a bit week and was taken advantage of a bit too easily. I guess that was Bobby's character so he did a good job. Jennifer Lopez did not have as big a part as I thought, but she did OK with it. Nothing spectacular, just OK.

The characters that stole the movie, in my honest opinion, were Darrell the mechanic (Billy Bob Thornton) and Toby N. Tucker (Joaquin Phoenix). They had the redneck stereotypes down pat, especially Thornton.

This movie was a decent little thriller. I am glad I did not see it way back when it was in theaters but it is OK for a rental. I give 7 of 10 stars.

Brilliant & hallucinatory cinematography, impeccable use of music, and a handful of dark, edgy character sketches all work together very nicely to make this bleak, dark-humoured desert noir an overlooked highlight of Oliver Stone's career. The highly evocative atmosphere plays out against the Arizona desert in a way that (in addition to foreshadowing some of the work done in Terry Gilliam's own twisted little masterpiece 'Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas') seems to mirror, in a more subtle and tasteful manner, much of Stone's work in 'Natural Born Killers'. However, rather than hitting us over the head with whatever socially charged 'message' he may have been attempting to convey in that film, here he is simply content to let it build up a thick and steamy ambience that moves our hapless comrades on towards their own impending personal apocalypse. Nick Nolte, Sean Penn, and Jennifer Lopez all turn in great performances and Billy Bob Thornton's eccentric character sketch elevates what may be defined as a bit part to a far more relevant status. Modern noir with a few dark twists and a taste all it's own that's well worth digging into...for those who have a taste for this kind of thing, if you know what I mean.

Bobby Cooper is on his way to pay off his gambling debt to a Las Vegas loan shark. However when his car breaks down he has to wait in a small town until it is fixed. Unwittingly he is meets a beautiful woman and her husband, who offers him money to kill her. With the odds stacking up against Bobby he finds himself drawn deeper into greed, theft and murder.

This was a step away from political dramas and conspiracy thrillers for Oliver Stone, here he takes a standard film-noir plot and gives it his own touch. The plot is pure noir - full of shady characters, femme fatales, double crosses and murder, but it is compelling right till the end. It's thrilling to see Bobby become trapped in the town of Superior by a series of events (some coincidental, some deliberate) and unable to get away from the inevitable.

But what Stone does makes it even better. He films the whole thing in a style similar to that of Natural Born Killers, except not as graphic. He uses different film stocks, he cuts in different shots of characters while they voice over - the overall effect adds to the tension and the feeling of excitement. However he also makes good use of the wide landscape and uses long panoramic shots - this isn't a pop video director! Another great touch is the music - it's not moody like most noirs but instead mirrors the bright desert by being upbeat and unusual, the overall effect being a very quirky feeling.

The cast are roundly excellent and a great list of names. Sean Penn is totally believable as someone who tries to avoid the unavoidable and you do feel like he's trapped. Lopez has not been better - she is every inch the sultry femme fatale. Nolte is creepy as her husband, and does well mixing his gruff exterior with deeper guilt. Powers Booth, Joaquin Phoenix and Claire Danes are all good in minor but still important characters. Pleasant surprises exist in the rest of the cast with Jon Voight, Laurie Metcalf and Liv Tyler making cameos - although in the case of Tyler I found it more distracting than the others (she appears in the background as if the film is saying "look - it's Liv Tyler".

Overall an excellent criminally-ignored film with a great cast and the touch of a great director.

I have to say this film was sort of what I thought it was... I really enjoyed it!

I've seen Sean Penn in a few films now and they're all good. Oliver Stone is one of the finest men in film production. It's visually stunning, loads of mad camera pans and colour blast-outs! The supporting cast are great as well. Billy Bob Thornton looks nothing like him and is away with it, Jennifer Lopez is attractive an alluring, Nick Nolte is totally convincing and great as the wicked husband, Joiquin Phoenix is mad as TNT and possibly the best is John Voight as a blind homeless person!

A great film with a good ending... although I wouldn't like to be any of them!

A good 7/10