Gone in Sixty Seconds (2000) – rewatch

• Director: Dominic Sena
• With: Nicolas Cage, Angelina Jolie, Giovanni Ribisi, Vinnie Jones, Scott Caan, Robert Duvall, T.J. Cross, Timothy Olyphant, Delroy Lindo, Will Patton, Christopher Eccleston, Chi McBride, James Duval, William Lee Scott
• Music by: Trevor Rabin
• Duration: 1h58
• Studio: Touchstone Pictures/Jerey Bruckheimer Films
• Rating: 9/10

Synopsis:

Memphis Raines must return to the world of auto theft after his brother breaches a contract with a Russian crime lord to deliver high end cars. Memphis must get a gang together for a one night ‘boost’ to grab all the cars while avoiding apprehension by the auto theft cop who trailed him years before.

Review:

Nicolas Cage had his movie heydays in the nineties with a series of action movies, often produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. In the year 2000 came a remake of ‘Gone in 60 Seconds’, with a topcast and a speedy action driven heist movie.

This is still one of my favourite action movies. I’m a car lover, especially those classic cars like the Mustang they steal in this movie, Eleanor!

when Kip Raines busts a car boost and risks losing his life, his brother Memphis has to step in and undo a promise he made years ago: never to steal another car in his life. This time he has to steal 50 cars in three days. Some of those cars are really rare so he needs help. Assembling a team of his former mates and his brother’s team they try to do the unthinkable, in order to save Kip’s life.

Memphis’ unicorn, Eleanor, is also one of those cars. She’s the one car he never really got to steal without any incident. Maybe this time he will?

Apart from their contractor, the viscious Calitri, they have to deal with the police as well, detectives Castlebeck and Drycoff breathing close in the neck of Memphis and his team.

And then we get a series of heists and car boosts that are filled with humour, fun chases and a cat and mouse game between the team and the police! And there’s that one scene with the dog eating some car keys…

Cage plays his enigmatic charming self in this movie, a role he seems to be taking in every movie he was in during the nineties and early 2000’s… (Con Air, The Rock, National Treasure…) Recently I don’t see many of his movies anymore… I do know he’ll be in a new Dracula movie soon, called Renfield!

This was also the introduction of Angelina Jolie for me, whom I’d never seen acting in any role before. She’s the ‘tough’ girl power element in a movie filled with only testosterone…

If ever one movie deserved a sequel, I think could have been it. Well, we got the Fast and Furious series now, so I’m not complaining.

So yeah, sit back and enjoy a little speed, a little gasoline smell and a lot of pretty amazing cars! (Although I never understood why that Toyota was part of the list, a list filled with muscle cars and dreamcars… and then there’s a stupid SUV?)