Some may argue that Stone's lesser remembered 1997 opus U Turn is light on the substance angle and Stone's films is often deliberately controversial (e.g., JFK), but it's Preposition separating the two nouns, Stone's work might be better seen as style vs. So that epigram might be slightly modified in his case to provide a more accurate descriptor of at least some of his films. In fact has been accused of perhaps donning a tin foil headpiece at times, and Oliver Stone has never really been accused of being an empty hat, so to speak, and Style over substance has been one of those epigrams that has been used repeatedly to try to describe flashy filmmakers who perhapsĭon't have a lot to say, but who say it winningly anyway.
Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, April 10, 2015 This film is rated R.Bobby and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. Nordberg music by Ennio Morricone production designer, Victor Kempster produced by Dan Halsted and Clayton Townsend released by Tri-Star Pictures. It includes sex and murder, both graphic, of course.ĭirected by Oliver Stone written by John Ridley, based on his book ''Stray Dogs'' director of photography, Robert Richardson edited by Hank Corwin and Thomas J. ''U-Turn'' is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It's best not to read too much into these or anything else. Set decoration is playful too, including signs (''How Long Will You Live?'') and kitschy objects that comment on the increasingly lurid action. Nordberg avoids the hysterical pitch of ''Natural Born Killers'' while still keeping the audience off balance. The film captures that outlook with Robert Richardson's extremely versatile cinematography, some of it given a nicely dated and tawdry edge with the use of reversal film stock, the kind used in military training films. Maybe not, but somebody has spent an awful lot of time experiencing subliminal flashes and contemplating bleached skulls. ''Is everybody in this town on drugs?'' Bobby is eventually prompted to ask. Everything is nothing too.'') Claire Danes and Joaquin Phoenix play a giddy ingenue and her amusingly unhinged boyfriend. (''You know, we're all eyes in the same head,'' says the wise man. When not busy being played for a fool by one McKenna or the other, Bobby sees the rest of the sights, including Powers Boothe as the sheriff and a heavily disguised Jon Voight as a blind Indian sage.
They are one and the same: Jake McKenna, played by Nick Nolte with a hard Lee Marvin look and a few grudges of his own. She invites him home, where it develops that Grace has a husband and a problem. The filmmaker describes the genre as ''scorpions in a bucket.'' In this universe it's better to be a stranger in town than one of the thrill-starved locals, that's for sure.īarely has he stridden down Main Street (and Only Street) when Bobby is bewitched by Grace McKenna (Jennifer Lopez). But his film, a long, decadent wallow that cheerfully includes events like a fight with golf club, ax and Indian spear, does finally prove that it's possible to leap off the deep end even on very dry land.Įnergized by obvious spontaneity and featuring the inspired visual efforts of many longtime Stone collaborators, as well as the zesty addition of an Ennio Morricone score, ''U-Turn'' adapts the novel ''Stray Dogs,'' by John Ridley (who wrote the screenplay), into a parade of colorful lowlifes. Stone's gleeful experiment is often as liberating for the viewer as it must have been for him. They got animals livin' inside them too.'') Indeed, Mr. (''Human beings ain't just human, you know. This can indeed be dizzying, what with unexpected angles, sudden shifts in points of view, frequent high-voltage surprises and all the fangs, beaks and antlers that illustrate the film's basic premise. So ''U-Turn'' becomes a showcase for the filmmaker's terrific arsenal of visual mannerisms and free-association imagery.
Neither of them is really capable of anything plain. Stone winds up treating his story's sin-soaked connivers the way Francis Ford Coppola treated vampires.
Shot in a hurry (42 days) with a big cast and a smallish budget ($20 million), it tells a relatively unencumbered tale of greed, lust and the usual etceteras, a story in which sooner or later someone is bound to offer a business proposition with the caveat: ''It's gotta look like an accident.'' However simply he approaches this familiar milieu, Mr. ''U-Turn'' is a steamy film noir anomaly in the never dull, ever-checkered career of Oliver Stone.