Go (1999, R)
Directed and Photographed by Doug Liman
Written by John August
Starring Katie Holmes, Sarah Polley, Desmond Askew, Scott Wolf, Jay Mohr, Nathan Bexton, Timothy Olyphant, Robert Peters, Taye Diggs, and J.E. Freeman
As Reviewed by James Brundage
If you want a serious film, then go see something else.
If you want to have fun, see Go.
Go is fun. Go is the kind of fun that makes you want a cigarette afterwards and, a bad mark on it, leaves some of us wanting more. The plot of Go is reminiscient of a country song I once heard: "Why Don't We Get Drunk and Screw?" except that in Go, the refrain should be: "Why Don't We Hit Pot and Screw?". A classic demonstration of sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll, Go takes us on a non-linear, multi-faceted view of a drug deal.
We watch the SNAFU go down from three viewpoints, taking us back and forth through time and space and ending up where we began. If it sounds like Pulp Fiction, you shouldn't be surprised. In basic story structure, the two films are near carbon copies. In Pulp Fiction, it tells the story of two hits gone wrong with diversions in between, and in Go we see the story of a drug deal gone wrong, with diversions in between. There is, however, a notable difference. Pulp Fiction was a serious movie with some comedic elements. Go is a comedic movie with some serious elements. That is why I told people expecting something serious to get lost.
To go into detail about the plot, we have Ronna (Sarah Polley from The Sweet Hereafter and Exotica), a girl behind on her rent who decides to deal drugs and work extra shifts in order to avoid being evicted. She gets set up to deal drugs by two gay soap actors working for cops, Zach (Jay Morh) and Adam (Scott Wolf) and is aided in the act by her friends Claire (Katie Holmes) and Mannie (Nathan Bexton) and the LA drug dealer Todd Gaines (Timothy Olyphant). When the deal goes wrong, Ronna is forced to flush the real Ecstasy and ends up dealing Baby Asprin at a Christmas Rave.
Meanwhile, in Vegas, the normal drug dealer, Simon (Desmond Askew) is having a ball in Vegas. He loses money, has a threesome where he attains a new spiritual high, sets a room on fire because one of the girls set tissues on fire as she plugged her nose in order to take a bong hit. Running from that, he teams up with Marcus (Taye Diggs), a black guy who keeps being mistaken for a hotel worker due to his race. Marcus, as a revenge of sorts, steals a ferarri which happens to have a 9mm in it and the two of them go to a strip club, where Simon steals a bouncer. The bouncer, of course, has a psychotic father (J.E. Freeman) who begins to chase them through Vegas and L.A.
The film is a technical masterpiece but a sad spot of storytelling. Incredibly strong in the realm of dark comedy, it then tries to suddenly be serious and ends up annoying people like me. Look, if you're going to have a point than have a point, and if you're not, don't try.
Aside from that it is an incredibly cool movie. People obsessed with the movies will be awestruck at Liman's capability to capture the rave so completely, which he does by using some of the best lighting effects captured on the silver screen (furthermore, it does not lack the idiotic error of seeing the Stedicam's shadow that we saw in Swingers). People obsessed with music will love the soundtrack, which includes No Doubt and Natalie Imbruglia (the No Doubt song, at the risk of sounding like a stupid member of my MTV generation, kicks ass). People who are obsessed with drugs will just love the drugs.
The film is gifted with scenes funnier than you are normally greeted with in a drug movie. In Cheech and Chong, we just saw them act stoned. In Go, we see them being high. Two strange drug sequences occur as an Ecstasy double-dosed junkie imagines tangoing with a fellow check out lady and is later talked to about Chinest nationalists by a cat. Another beautiful moment comes when a bunch of yuppie teens trick each other into believing that sinus medicine is Ecstasy in the midst of a Ford Windstar.
Not a film for anyone who minds drugs, sex, profanity, and the general yada yada yada that I don't care about, it still comes off as an extreme dose of fun for twentysomethings and below. Just know this coming in to Go. Don't smoke pot during this film: you get all the same effects by just watching it.
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