Go

A little gem of a movie, an excellent follow-up (but not sequel) to the fantastic "Swingers".

Sarah Polley is worth the price of admission alone, for her excellent performance. She is supported by an equally excellent cast including Taye Diggs, Scott Wolf, Katie Holmes, Jay Mohr, and Timothy Olyphant - among others.

Many viewed this movie as being an MTV version of Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction" and, while this may to an extent me true, it is obviously much more than that; and an excellent stand-alone movie of it's own.

Split into 3 separate storylines which clash and collide along the way, finally merging as the movie comes to a close, this movie constantly keeps the viewer on edge; and provides an excellent example of the drug/club etc. scene of the 90's and 00's.

Favourite scene has to be: where the teens in the car (in the first storyline) are convinced they're 'going up', as they believe they're on Es - but are really on aspirin and allergy medicine! Fantastic!!!!

Funny, edgy, fast-paced with a sharp script, strong cast, and excellent soundtrack.

This film was quite a surprise, I knew its vibe screamed 90s and that was one of the reasons I was so drawn to it, the other one being that it's a multiple point of view story, which if done very well, it can be really effective and efficient in telling a story. So the premise is a drug deal gone awry, and told from three different perspectives, of course each providing us different takes on the same problem and how it got the characters there in the first place. Really interesting, well executed. The acting is great, especially Timothy Olyphant and William Fichtner, who stand out in my opinion. One of the most interesting aspects of the film is that the people involved are just young, naive people, rather than gangsters and evil-spirited people. Timothy Olyphant's character is kinda shady, but he's really charismatic and that's an engaging quality. There is an arousing mixture of characters that constantly mess up and the results are exhilarating.

Go is clearly an underrated film, and if you are reading this, I highly recommend it to you.

"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."

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 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.