Go

Covid sucks and it's been a pretty boring year. The only possible positive I can think of is having the time to find classic movies like this. 'Go' came out in 1999, when I was in High School, but I'm still surprised I haven't watched it before. I remember hearing it was a "Tarantino wanna be" from Doug Liman, but it's so much more. First, the story/plot is simple to follow but very entertaining. Not only does it have a great story but it's executed to perfection by the well chosen cast. Just to name a few members: Katie Holmes, William Fichtner, Taye Diggs, Timothy Olyphant, Jay Mohr, Sarah Polly, and it even has the debut of Melissa McCarthy. It's very rare to find a movie with this kind of cast and I was blown away by it. My favorite thing about the movie: It's length. It's a perfect amount of time to entertain you, but not take up a huge chunk of your day. It's direct and to the point, with no wasted screen time. I wish we had more movies like it.

If you haven't had the chance or maybe if you are just bored like I was, give this movie a chance and you won't be disappointed.

I liked this movie well enough to watch it twice. I waited 'til it came out on video, but made sure to see it, because it stars Sarah Polley, who I've been a fan of since her "Road to Avonlea" days. This is not a serious movie. It's fun, upbeat, quick, and for those with short attention spans. I liked it. I didn't think it was as incredible as some say, but enjoyable enough to watch it twice. So many people have compared it to Pulp Fiction. Frankly, the only similarity I see between the two, is the "jumping around timelines". Which I like. Good movie to watch, just don't bother trying to analyze it - you won't come up with much.

It's fun going back and watching these movies from the 90s and seeing all these actors before they made it as big as they did (or at least some of them did). 'Go' got itself a pretty decent cast and probably did it for the minimum cost. Even Melissa McCarthy makes a brief (but quite funny) cameo. It meant a lot of fun performances in a fun little film.

I've always enjoyed the 3-perspective format. I've seen it in television a lot (it works perfectly in sit-com format separated by two ad breaks) but haven't seen it as often in films. I thought it was going to be how three people experienced the same story but it was more a case of three separate stories which happen to intersect a lot.

I found the characters in this movie either likeable or interesting. The likeable ones weren't always interesting but the unlikable ones certainly were (if that makes sense). The film also finds a good balance between humour and seriousness. It has some laughs but it never feels like that is the primary goal. I liked this film. 7/10.

"Go" reads like a very very good sophomore offering by a very very good up-and-coming director. You can almost see a bright future for everyone involved in the film, from the director (Doug Liman) to the screenwriter (John August) to all of the young actors. The script is clearly the winner, with witty dialogue and a convoluted plotline (or plotlines, depending on how you view it) centered around a dozen or so GenX-er Los Angelenos on Christmas Eve. The film slickly moves you from one plotline to the next, as you follow one minor disaster leading to other minor disasters.

The film being a "sophomore offering," of course, has some drawbacks. Yes, it is tangentially derivative of "Pulp Fiction." And yes, it does scrounge a bit from this teen flick and that. In some cases, certain plotlines wrap up too neatly, and in other cases the plotlines don't converge nearly as neatly enough. But what the film may lack in originality it certainly makes up for with style and quirks.

The real discovery in all this is the cast. Sarah Polly stands out (listen to her mild Canadian accent slip through once in a while) as the world-weary checkout gal who's first and only foray into drug-dealing unleashes a legion of trouble for her. Desmond Askew (wonderfully punny name) is this Pulp Fiction's Tim Roth, glib and cocky as his well-ordered world whirls and crumbles around him in a neatly choreographed disaster. As the sinister drug supplier, Timothy Olyphant is particularly menacing, exuding equal amounts of danger and innocence, sexiness and insecurity. The characters in "Go" never become cardboard parodies of themselves, and they never dissolve into charicatures of themselves for the sake of plot or atmosphere.

So watch the film, soak in the plot, atmosphere, and the characters. At the risk of sounding glib myself, by all means "Go."

Go has not gotten even half of the praise it deserves. The script is genius and the fast paced directing and cinematography are totally the reason to see something in the theatre rather than video. And this is not just another "oh this is my favorite movie, so it has to be great" reviews, there are facts. The epic Godfather, ranked as the best movie ever created by a human being, is lucky if it goes for 20 minutes without having the sound lose sync with the mouth movement. Not that I'm totally knocking it. And also, everyone says, "oh Go is the son of Pulp Fiction", "a lesser Pulp Fiction", but the fact is the it's structure has much more in common with the other Tarantino great Jackie Brown. Rent this to see what great cinema is.