Go - Una notte da dimenticare

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.

"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."

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.

After PULP FICTION a lot of films tried to emulate its format. But none came close to matching its success. GO has clear elements of PULP FICTION in it, but it does its own thing at the same time. This is the right way to make a movie that may be inspired by another great film while still branching out on its own.

The story is great fun from the first frame to the last. The characters are fun and believable and there is a lot of great dialog here. Every time I watch it I continue to be impressed, even still after all these years. It never lets me down and it never once lets up even for a second. Highly recommend.

One of the best this year! A wild ride that is hard to not compare to "Pulp Fiction", but if you didn't like Pulp, you won't like Go. I loved both, so this is a treat! Doug Liman had directed a worthy follow-up to Swingers, in the eyes of 7 kids and a drug deal gone way bad. The funniest moments come from Desmond Askew and Taye Diggs in Las Vegas. Never once is this movie dull. Watch with an open mind and a wild imagination!