Gone in Sixty Seconds

Directed by Dominic Sena, Gone in Sixty Seconds follows retired car thief Memphis Raines (Nicolas Cage) as he agrees to steal 50 cars in one night after his wayward brother (Giovanni Ribisi’s Kip) is kidnapped by a vicious crime boss (Christopher Eccleston’s Raymond Calitri) – with the narrative detailing the efforts of Memphis and his team, which includes Angelina Jolie’s Sway, Scott Caan’s Tumbler, and Robert Duvall’s Otto, to complete their objective while also avoiding the advances of two tenacious cops (Delroy Lindo’s Roland and Timothy Olyphant’s Drycoff). Filmmaker Sena, working from Scott Rosenberg’s screenplay, delivers a pervasively slick actioner that isn’t quite able to justify its nearly two-hour running time, ultimately, as the picture suffers from a midsection that often seems to be spinning its wheels in the buildup to its undeniably enthralling climactic car chase. It’s worth noting, however, that Sena does an effective job of eliciting strong performances from a breathtakingly stacked cast, with Cage’s predictably commanding work here matched by a seemingly endless cavalcade of periphery players. (Folks like Olyphant and Duvall are as compelling as one might’ve expected, to be sure, and yet it’s hard to deny that Lindo and Will Patton eventually emerge as obvious standouts.) The effectiveness of that final car chase, which is completely captivating and engrossing, ensures that Gone in Sixty Seconds concludes on a decidedly (and palpably) positive note, and the film can’t, in the end, help but come off as anything but an almost prototypically polished crowd-pleaser from producer Jerry Bruckheimer.

*** out of ****