Hollywood imperialism in action: take a profitable little independent film (a car-chase thing from the speed-happy days of Vanishing Point, Dirty Mary Crazy Larry, Sugarland Express, etc., etc.), take it over, make it into a much bigger and even more profitable studio film. Thinking big passes as imagination nowadays. The basic situation is sufficiently little: a retired car thief (eulogized by his personal Inspector Javert for his "panache," his "flash") must "boost" fifty specified cars in one night, for the schmaltzy motive of saving his kid brother from the wrath of a stereotyped evil foreigner (English, in this case). A tight schedule, to be sure, but not so tight it cannot accommodate a comic side trip to feed Ex-Lax to the dog who swallowed the laser-cut Mercedes keys. More centrally, countless car wrecks will be accommodated as well, but the hero's good-guy status must not be jeopardized by any innocent casualties -- even when a pursuing cop car gets knocked through a concrete wall by a wrecking ball. With Nicolas Cage, Angelina Jolie, Giovanni Ribisi -- those eyebrows, those lips, those adenoids, respectively -- Robert Duvall, Delroy Lindo, and Christopher Eccleston; directed by Dominic Sena. (2000) — Duncan Shepherd
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