The Getaway (1972): A relatively lightweight Sam Peckinpah film, supposedly this was a rush job to satisfy the box office. Nevertheless, it's an excellent action film, if not as epochal as the three preceding films. Steve McQueen and Ali McGraw play an oddly sparkless couple who plan a bank heist; the best scene involves them hiding out in a garbage truck (no doubt the inspiration for that similar scene in Star Wars). Based on the Jim Thompson novel (as was The Grifters), a pulpy '50s noir writer who shares quite a few sensibilities with Peckinpah, and is well worth reading.
Grade: B+
Go (1998): Doug Liman is to Quentin Tarintino as Tarintino is to Martin Scorsese -- that is to say, a shallow knockoff of a superior talent, and I for one have had enough. But unlike his idol Quentin, who seems to have seen every action movie ever made and cut'n'splices the results into a dizzyingly alusive hypertext, Liman seems to have never seen a movie made after 1989, and half of those involved Tarintino. Everything about this movie screams "Pulp Fiction ripoff." The only substantial difference is that the characters and target audience are Generation Y as opposed to Generation X -- which translates into Tarintino minus the irony and sense of history, leaving only the fliply nihilistic, empty hipster posing. Oh, and did I mention that this flick comes with "a hip alternative soundtrack," too - this film is as cartoonish and state-of-the-mall '90s as No Doubt. The plot revolves around a failed drug deal told from three points of view which all come together in the end - stop, now where have I heard this before? Ooo, and there's guns and meaningless sex and charming drug dealers and corrupt cops and conversations about pop culture trivia between attempted killings! And the blank characters act very amorally toward a girl's brutal death! Here's Liman's idea of trendily witty Tarintino-esque dialogue (I'm paraphrasing from memory): "I hate the Family Circus. It's the last comic I read and it always sucks and it ruins all the comics I just read." "So why do you read it if you hate it so much?" "Because it's unavoidable." "Why do you hate the Family Circus so much?" "Because it sucks." You don't have to be Oscar Wilde, but man, that ain't even David Mamet.
Grade: D+