BLOW OUT
A film review by Vince Deehan
Copyright 1996 Vince Deehan
Written and Directed by Brian De Palma Cast: John Travolta, Nancy Allen, John Lithgow, Dennis Franz.
(Warning- review contains a few minor spoilers).
With all the resurgent interest in John Travolta lately, post PULP FICTION, it was with great interest that I checked out one of his earlier films which has received some praise recently. Quentin Tarantino has said of BLOW OUT that it contains one of Travolta's best ever performances.
BLOW OUT is a thriller set in Philadelphia where Jack Terry (John Travolta) works as a sound effects man on low budget horror movies. Whilst out one night recording the sound of the wind for one of his films, he is witness to a car crashing through a bridge and into the river below. Jack jumps into the river where he saves a young lady in the car from certain drowning. He is unable to save the man in the car who has already died. It turns out that the dead man is a governor and a presidential candidate and the young lady is a girl he has picked up, Sally (Nancy Allen). The tyres of the car have been blown out and the whole accident is presented to the public as being an accident. Jack knows otherwise as he has taped the whole incident on audiotape and can distinctly hear two bangs, one of which he feels sure is the gunshot of an assassin and the other bang being the fatal tyre blowout.
The stage is set for a fight by Jack to prove that there has been a cover up, where the authorities are covering up an assassination. A photographer , Manny (Dennis Franz), who just happened to be at the scene of the time, has also taken a roll of pictures of the accident. When Manny sells his pictures to a magazine, Jack uses his film skills to link his sound to Manny's still photos. When the two are put together Jack has both visual and audio evidence of the gunshot. Armed with this evidence he goes to the police who at first seem uninterested but eventually agree to see what Jack has got. Unfortunately, the assassin Burke (John Lithgow) wipes the tapes clean before the police can see and hear Jack's evidence. As the film progresses we discover the real reason why Manny was so fortuitously present at the accident and the real reason why Sally was in the governor's car.
BLOW OUT is a taut thriller with some great moments of humour. A running gag throughout the film shows the trouble that Jack's boss has in trying to find a good screamer to use in dubbing one of his horror flicks. The film has dated quite badly though, with some rather dodgy and jarring music which gives the film a rather hammy feel in places that I feel sure was not intentional. The dialogue is not too great either but is adequate enough. I guess I am so used to hearing John Travolta spouting Tarantino's snappy dialogue in PULP FICTION that anything else pales in comparison.
John Lithgow turns in a gripping performance as the assassin ,which is very effective and chilling. Dennis Franz, currently in NYPD Blue, is great as the slimy photographer Manny. Although it has to be said that Franz really hasn't changed very much in the proceeding 15 years, except he had more hair then ! Nancy Allen's performance improves as the film goes on, but is pretty woeful at the start where she fails to match Travolta's convincing acting.
John Travolta turns in a great performance, his charisma carries the whole film - so what else is new ? His early scenes where we see him working as a sound effects man are terrific. Mainly because there is so much humour when we see him and his boss having trouble with the scream track on their horror film. As the film goes on and the pressure on Jack intensifies, Travolta effectively conveys the tension and stress he is under. The best scene though in the film is the scene near the beginning where we see Jack on a bridge in the late evening recording the sounds around him. There is hardly any dialogue at all in this scene, but the way John Travolta moves around with the microphone you never doubt his believability as a sound recordist.
All in all, BLOW OUT is an effective thriller which, although not essential viewing, is well worth a look if you get the chance.
Review Written on Thur 7th March 1996 by Vince Deehan (vince@deehan.demon.co.uk)
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