Black Cadillac

A little mysterious,... hotted up '57 Cadillac chasing the Saab in the snow, at night, after a pub brawl....hmm.

The greater part of this movie takes place within the Saab or looking at it from without. Most of this is very good stunt work and captivating to watch.

Charlie the cop was a crackup right from the moment he just helped himself to a lift with the boys in the Saab. From the minute he speaks he sounds suspicious and reminds us more than once that he is off duty and just wants to get home.

The two brothers' dialogue doesn't sound like any two brothers communicating that I've heard but maybe they're step-brothers or something. The punch-ups are magnificent and some of the recipients are mega tough. Its either that or lightweights doing the punching. When you watch a man standing over another and punching him in the face repeatedly, say maybe five or six slammers, and then the guy can get up and carry on, blood lip, nose, eye perhaps? nothing!! Not a mark. Those gridiron guys at Yale, they're something else and hey, can they drive or what?

The flaws in this movie don't get in the way and it was intriguing to watch.

My rating 7/10 (Distinctive)

After causing some trouble at a remote roadhouse, three young men are pursued through the night by a mysterious black car.

Sounds OK? And it should have been. The basic premise is quite good and Shane Johnson (Scott), Josh Hammond (C.J.) and Jason Dohring (Robby), the three young men in question, are all quite solid in their roles. Their acting is convincing and applause to them.

Where Black Cadillac falls down is in the pace and the editing. After an initial good 30 minutes the films meanders through the next hour to a predictable and overly slow conclusion. The audience is left with a feeling that this could have been a good 45 minute short but the script/direction ran out of steam far too early. 3/10.

There are some things that naturally are cinematic. Among these are car chases, smoke and snow. Similarly on the story side, people cast together in a small space with an outside threat and unrevealed past relationships.

It terms of flow, the most reliable device is a character who is not what he seems.

On these safe poles is strung the structure of this movie. Overall, it isn't any worse than other fare that doesn't matter. Some of the photography — especially of the menacing Caddy — is good.

But someone smart enough to use these devices should also have know the dangers. They are so familiar that in order to be effective they have to be exaggerated beyond themselves.

To have exaggerated chases these days requires CGI and some recourse to the supernatural. To have the historical revelation matter it has to be extreme, completely strange. When the twist comes and you learn which things are not as you suspected, these days that has to be at least two major twists. Big ones that involve the skin of the thing.

You'll find the same pattern in romance where too much thrill eats the center and two little prevents it from slaking onto the blade.

Maybe its impossible to be delicate and surgically sharp these days, which is why genre films are already bankrupt, reduced to selfparody.

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

After getting in a violent bar fight, three friends take off across a huge expanse of wilderness, only to be terrorized by a hulking black Cadillac. A friend of mine rented this and insisted I watch it with them. I was expecting a supernatural "Christine"-style thriller and with a title like "Black Cadillac", a goofy one at that. As it turns out, this film has no supernatural elements, nor was it very goofy. The film succeeding is being entertaining, well done, and at times even vaguely creepy.

The entire cast does a fine job here, especially Randy "Where the hell did my career go?" Quaid playing the police officer, who succeeds in making his character both funny and creepy at the same time.

The screenplay offer more twists and turns than you can shake a stick at, most of which were genuinely surprising. The tension between the characters was also very effective. The characters are mostly well-developed, there were even one or two I actually (gasp!) cared for. Director John Murlowski has done a fine job handling the suspense, and the chase scenes were often exciting.

If you're a fan of the "road terror" sub-genre, you'll probably like this movie. It kept me engaged and entertained for 90+ minutes, and that's pretty much all I asked for. Give it a try.

6/10.

Enjoyed this movie .It is one of those movie's that flies below the radar and pops up now and again. Well worth a watch.