A man heading to Vegas to pay off his gambling debt before the Russian mafia kills him is forced to stop in an Arizona town where everything that can go wrong does go wrong.A man heading to Vegas to pay off his gambling debt before the Russian mafia kills him is forced to stop in an Arizona town where everything that can go wrong does go wrong.A man heading to Vegas to pay off his gambling debt before the Russian mafia kills him is forced to stop in an Arizona town where everything that can go wrong does go wrong.
- Awards
- 1 win & 2 nominations total
Ilia Volok
- Sergi
- (as Ilia Volokh)
Valeriy Nikolaev
- Mr. Arkady
- (as Valery Nikolaev)
Julie Hagerty
- Flo
- (as Julie Haggerty)
Annie Tien
- Short Order Cook
- (as Annie Mei-Ling Tien)
Featured reviews
In "U-Turn," Oliver Stone narrows his focus from the broad-canvass projects he typically produces. Those seeking the knowing profundities of "JFK" or "Nixon" will be disappointed. This is a genre picture of the desert southwestern potboiler variety, a much-updated "Painted Desert" kind of film. Lots of bad luck, scorpions, whiskey, sexual perversity, bullying, greed, lots of sweat and very little shaving. The basic questions begged by a movie like this one are these: Who will have sex? Who will live? Who will die? And who will end up with the money? By the final reel, all these questions are very satisfactorily answered. For a picture of this type, "U-Turn" is very good indeed.
Sean Penn is smashing, Nolte has never been creepier, and Jennifer Lopez is, er, extremely effective in this film's only real female role. John Voight, buried in the role a mystic Indian, is most entertaining. And we get another patented oddball performance by Billy Bob Thornton that is absolutely worth the price of admission. For good measure, Juaquin Phoenix and Claire Danes deliver a too-brief but electrifying turn as a young couple adept at creating trouble. As if Sean Penn, in this picture, didn't have enough already.
Sure, the predictable desert atmospherics are a bit overdone. But the solid script by John Ridley, the letter-perfect performances, and Stone's sure directorial hand make this one of his better films.
This movie is out of the theatres, so one word to you parents about "U-Turn." This is not one to watch in the presence of the kiddies. It contains very graphic and violence and sexual material clearly unsuitable for young folk or the sensitive soul of any age.
But if you like your film noir with sand and scorpions thrown in for good measure, this is a sure-fire rental that will leave you fully satisfied.
Sean Penn is smashing, Nolte has never been creepier, and Jennifer Lopez is, er, extremely effective in this film's only real female role. John Voight, buried in the role a mystic Indian, is most entertaining. And we get another patented oddball performance by Billy Bob Thornton that is absolutely worth the price of admission. For good measure, Juaquin Phoenix and Claire Danes deliver a too-brief but electrifying turn as a young couple adept at creating trouble. As if Sean Penn, in this picture, didn't have enough already.
Sure, the predictable desert atmospherics are a bit overdone. But the solid script by John Ridley, the letter-perfect performances, and Stone's sure directorial hand make this one of his better films.
This movie is out of the theatres, so one word to you parents about "U-Turn." This is not one to watch in the presence of the kiddies. It contains very graphic and violence and sexual material clearly unsuitable for young folk or the sensitive soul of any age.
But if you like your film noir with sand and scorpions thrown in for good measure, this is a sure-fire rental that will leave you fully satisfied.
"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.
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.
This is one of my favorite Oliver Stone films. It has everything (cheating incestuous sex, chopping off digits, a dumb hick mechanic, a blind native American who wants Dr. Pepper all the time, etc etc etc) that a well-rounded movie needs, plus it was completely done in a comic fashion. It is closest to Stone's other film "Natural Born Killers" by way of stylish camera shots and the addition of comedy into a dramatic setting.
Sean Penn brilliantly plays the lead character, whose car blows a radiator hose out in the middle of the Arizona desert, and the closest town is that of Superior, AZ, a dirt-road town with barely 1,000 people living there, if that. Penn goes through hell from the beginning when random characters in the city want something from him and in return, it drives him to try his best to get the hell out of Superior. Everything during his days in Superior is centered around money and the fact that he has hardly any. So he gets schemed into murders, and he gets whatever little he has taken away from him (his train ticket gets ripped up by the local hoodlum, TNT, again brilliantly played by Joaquin Phoenix, and he has several full bottles of beverages broken for different reasons). Therefore, he's constantly running in circles to get out of this town.
There is an all-star cast (back then, and now) of actors: Jennifer Lopez (a better singer than actress), Nick Nolte, Joaquin Phoenix, Billy Bob Thornton (the best among the bunch as the hick mechanic), Sean Penn, Claire Danes, Liv Tyler (only for a second in the train station), and Jon Voight...all packed into a nice DVD. The music had that comic, light-hearted side to it (with the country sound of a jew's-harp played over violin or whatever, etc) which helped you to see the irony that is driving him to madness in this town. Again the camera shots were awesome, and they had that Oliver Stone quality of the 90's where he would switch frames with the villain of the movie with an animal skull and switch the point-of-view to see what the actors are seeing, and so on.
I didn't like the ending so much. I kind of wanted things to resolve themselves, but instead, things just keep on falling into the bad-luck-category of his life. I also hated Jennifer Lopez's delivery of lines (just like in any other movie with her...The Cell, etc) because they feel so fake and put on that you know the director was just looking for T&A for the film. Also she doesn't play a native American very well. She has a thick accent straying too much towards Latino that you don't pick up on any cultural change until you get the story.
Overall, though, (bad point aside) it is a brilliant movie that is easy to watch if you like the other Stone films. I had to give it a 9/10 for great performances, great music, awesome story, and everything in between. Go out and buy it if your a fan of any of the actors listed above, or if you are trying to find a great weekend film with friends.
Sean Penn brilliantly plays the lead character, whose car blows a radiator hose out in the middle of the Arizona desert, and the closest town is that of Superior, AZ, a dirt-road town with barely 1,000 people living there, if that. Penn goes through hell from the beginning when random characters in the city want something from him and in return, it drives him to try his best to get the hell out of Superior. Everything during his days in Superior is centered around money and the fact that he has hardly any. So he gets schemed into murders, and he gets whatever little he has taken away from him (his train ticket gets ripped up by the local hoodlum, TNT, again brilliantly played by Joaquin Phoenix, and he has several full bottles of beverages broken for different reasons). Therefore, he's constantly running in circles to get out of this town.
There is an all-star cast (back then, and now) of actors: Jennifer Lopez (a better singer than actress), Nick Nolte, Joaquin Phoenix, Billy Bob Thornton (the best among the bunch as the hick mechanic), Sean Penn, Claire Danes, Liv Tyler (only for a second in the train station), and Jon Voight...all packed into a nice DVD. The music had that comic, light-hearted side to it (with the country sound of a jew's-harp played over violin or whatever, etc) which helped you to see the irony that is driving him to madness in this town. Again the camera shots were awesome, and they had that Oliver Stone quality of the 90's where he would switch frames with the villain of the movie with an animal skull and switch the point-of-view to see what the actors are seeing, and so on.
I didn't like the ending so much. I kind of wanted things to resolve themselves, but instead, things just keep on falling into the bad-luck-category of his life. I also hated Jennifer Lopez's delivery of lines (just like in any other movie with her...The Cell, etc) because they feel so fake and put on that you know the director was just looking for T&A for the film. Also she doesn't play a native American very well. She has a thick accent straying too much towards Latino that you don't pick up on any cultural change until you get the story.
Overall, though, (bad point aside) it is a brilliant movie that is easy to watch if you like the other Stone films. I had to give it a 9/10 for great performances, great music, awesome story, and everything in between. Go out and buy it if your a fan of any of the actors listed above, or if you are trying to find a great weekend film with friends.
A marked gambler (Penn) on the run, comes to a little town in the middle of nowhere, south USA. A town filled with very unusual characters, sordid secrets and strange opportunities, that seem very appealing to this "Pat Poker" on the run, which desperately needs money to pay the idiotic, redneck town mechanic. Penn and Nolte are at the greatest level, and Lopez fills the requisites of her character. Beautiful piece of writing, with surprising plot twists which make way to a most brilliant ending, "Stone" style despair. A very misunderstood work by this brilliant, all-American director. Another piece of genuine America, with all her virtues and even more flaws, seen trough "stone" cold eyes...
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
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
Did you know
- TriviaWhen Jennifer Lopez's character (Grace McKenna) flashes back at the end of the film we see lots of photographs of her as a child. These photographs are actually photos from Jennifer Lopez's private collections of herself as a child.
- GoofsNear the first of the movie, where Cooper's car passes a vulture eviscerating a dead animal, the vulture has a leg ring with an attached band.
- SoundtracksIt's A Good Day
Written by Peggy Lee and Dave Barbour
Performed by Peggy Lee
Courtesy of Capitol Records under license from EMI-Capitol Music Special Markets
- How long is U Turn?Powered by Alexa
Details
Box office
- Budget
- $19,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $6,682,098
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $2,730,440
- Oct 5, 1997
- Gross worldwide
- $6,682,098
- Runtime2 hours 5 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1
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