U Turn (1997)

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U Turn (1997)

Pretty good story diluted with camera showmanship

Director Oliver Stone and screenwriter/novelist John Ridley (Three Kings) dish out a big old blank slate for us in this vertigo-inspiring whirlwind. Stone, most famous for his scathing anti-war/libertarian films depicting the 1960s and their effect on society (JFK, Born on the Fourth of July and Nixon, to name my personal favorites) goes a bit simpler here, dishing out morals and violence at about an equal rate. By the time the film's two hours are over, enough blood is dished out to drench three car interiors' worth, but the morals are a bit harder to swallow. Lessons in ethics and fortune set against the backdrop of empty towns and highways are perhaps best left to films like Easy Rider; they don't always stick as well when delivered with the very violence and depravity the film is attempting to condemn.

Sean Penn is Bobby, a drifter en route to Las Vegas to deliver a payoff to some mobsters after him for thirty grand. He knows they're not fooling (they sliced off two of his fingers with a pair of garden shears, pretty well putting the kibosh on his tennis instructor career), but things wind up turning to shit for him once he enters the ironically named Superior, Arizona. First, his radiator hose busts up and he leaves it with local hick mechanic Darryl (Billy Bob Thorton). Then he befriends Grace (Jennifer Lopez), a young woman fairly oozing sexuality until her sleazy, enraged husband Jake (Nick Nolte) walks in on him putting the moves on her in her house. Bobby escapes only to be approached by Jake ten minutes later about killing his wife, who, by his account, screws half the men in town, laughing all the way, ho ho ho. No pun intended.

Bobby manages to shrug him off only to have his payoff money shredded during a botched robbery attempt in a grocery store. After that, it's almost a perversion of the Book of Job, where God (or somebody--Stone's cinematography has not lost its touch and manages to suggest a more Catholic fate for Bobby's moral digressions) decides to throw everything it can at Bobby and see if he'll do the deed. A few more plagues leave him even more stranded, desperate and bewildered, among them a local loverboy savant itching for a fight (Joaquin Phoenix in an amusing role) over his flighty girlfriend (Claire Danes). Bobby finally agrees to kill Jake's wife, but right at the opportune moment he saves her from falling over a desert cliff, screws her, and then has to shrug her murder-my-husband-for-one hundred grand proposal. After Darryl, who is apparently not as inbred as he looks, sticks him with a higher repair bill, we can readily see (if we didn't before) that Bobby is not exactly the most beloved person on the planet. Everyone he calls for help, including his mother, tell him to go to hell, and when he stupidly blurts out his location to the mobsters in an attempt to get a loan (not one of the film's most believable moments), it's only a matter of time before they find him.

That's when he goes in with Grace, and that's the cue to sit back and wait out the scheme. Who kills who; who screws who; what's the real deal; when can Bobby let his guard down--all of them are questions which aren't put to rest until the end credits start rolling. This is effective suspense, and while the plot twists aren't really mind-blowing; they're more likely to elicit a "Huh--how about that" than anything else, Bobby does get into enough scrapes to keep us just as jumpy as he is. Maybe even more so.

Another plus--there is some diluted J-Lo nudity (though her acting still needs some tweaking), and Nolte and Thorton do play their parts more than satisfactorally--both of them have always given credence to the saying "There are no small parts--only small actors." Nolte is sizeable as a lust-crazed townie, and Thorton manages to provide a maddening stone wall for Penn's character to smash his head against. Powers Boothe, on the other hand, manages to be a small actor in a small role while fairly lurking in the background as Sherrif Virgil.

As a story, U Turn works pretty well--it certainly captures and holds the interest. As a visual exploration of free will and fate, it's cumbersome and headachey (alternating film stocks worked great in JFK--here it's flashy and unnecessary). Equally annoying is Jon Voight as the town's resident Tiberias, throwing out cryptic wisdom every chance he gets. "Things aren't always what they seem," he tells Bobby towards the climax; "Nothing makes the Great Spirit laugh louder than hearing your plans." Old advice all too quickly swallowed up in the mishmash of Stone's cinematographic somersaults and backflips. Still, for a popcorn movie and change, it does the trick nicely.

-Long

30 July 2003