Tuesday, February 16, 2010

U TURN (1997)

It’s stylishly made cult road movie by Oliver Stone and having great ensemble Hollywood cast starring- Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, Jennifer Lopez, Claire Danes, Joaquin Phoenix, Billy Bob Thornton & Jon Voight. It has two other fine aces on its sleeve- a background score composed by legendary Ennio Morricone & stylishly awesome DOP by Robert Richardson.

Bobby is a drifter and he’s in great fix. His car needs service but his money got robbed, he’s trying to woo a sultry damsel who’s having an ugly hubby and amid all this wild happenings in a strange remote country town he has to repay a huge sum of money to a rough gang who had cut his two fingers. He’s just landed up in really screwing situation with all sort of weird and bizarre characters.

Stone has contrived the plot with ingredients of strong violence, sex, money, murder, betrayal in stylish way. Overall it gives me the feeling of watching Tarantino kind of stuff but the treatment and twists seem a bit cliché. Movie also required tight editing in the middle part where Claire Danes-Phoenix’s unnecessarily stuffed characters making ruckus. Bollywood Director Sanjay Gupta ripped off the plot of the film and made stylish desi version of it as ‘Musafir’.

Compared to some of the finest films of Oliver Stone like ‘Platoon’, ‘Any Given Sunday’ or ‘Wall Street’ it’s a weak film. It’s more sort of popcorn entertainment.

Ratings- 6.5/10

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