U Turn (1997)

User Rating:

6.7/10   

Director:

Oliver Stone

Writers (WGA):

John Ridley (book)
John Ridley (screenplay)

Release Date:

3 October 1997 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Thriller

Tagline:

Sex. Murder. Betrayal. Everything that makes life worth living.

Plot:

A drifter becomes entangled with a femme fatale and her husband after his car breaks down in their small Southwest town.

Plot Keywords:

Trailer Park | American Southwest | Animal Cruelty | Soda | Rough Sex

Awards:

2 nominations

Cast

Sean Penn	...	Bobby Cooper
Nick Nolte	...	Jake McKenna
Jennifer Lopez	...	Grace McKenna
Powers Boothe	...	Sheriff Virgil Potter
Claire Danes	...	Jenny
Joaquin Phoenix	...	Toby N. Tucker a.k.a. TNT
Jon Voight	...	Blind Man
Billy Bob Thornton	...	Darrell
Abraham Benrubi	...	Biker #1
Richard Rutowski	...	Biker #2
Aida Linares	...	Jamilla
Sean Stone	...	Boy in Grocery Store
Ilia Volok	...	Sergei
Valeri Nikolayev	...	Mr. Arkady (as Valery Nikolaev)
Brent Briscoe	...	Boyd

Also Known As:

Stray Dogs (USA) (working title)
U Turn - Ici commence l'enfer (France)

MPAA:

Rated R for strong violence, sexuality and language.

Runtime:

125 min

Country:

France | USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital | SDDS

Certification:

New Zealand:R18 | Australia:MA (TV rating) | Singapore:R21 (re-rating) | Iceland:16 | Italy:VM18 | Australia:R | Canada:R | Finland:K-16 | France:-12 | Germany:18 (nf) | Hong Kong:III | Netherlands:16 (video premiere) | Norway:15 | Portugal:M/16 | Singapore:R(A) | South Korea:18 | Spain:18 | Sweden:15 | UK:18 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Coachella Valley, Mecca, California, USA

Company:

Canal+ Droits Audiovisuels

Trivia:

'Penn, Sean' had originally turned down his role due to schedule conflicts, and Bill Paxton replaced him. About a week before filming, Paxton backed out; fortunately, Penn had become available.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: Near the first of the movie, where Cooper's car passes a vulture eviscerating a dead animal, the vulture clearly has a leg ring with an attached band that is being yanked.

Quotes:

Darrell: Damn. Gonna be another hot one today. Sometimes I don't even want to get out of bed. Course, I don't want to get out for the cold ones neither.

Movie Connections:

References Greed (1924)

Soundtrack:

CHILI BLUES

Probably not the best advertisement for Superior, AZ

This is one of my favorite Oliver Stone films. It has everything (cheating incestuous sex, chopping off digits, a dumb hick mechanic, a blind native American who wants Dr. Pepper all the time, etc etc etc) that a well-rounded movie needs, plus it was completely done in a comic fashion. It is closest to Stone's other film "Natural Born Killers" by way of stylish camera shots and the addition of comedy into a dramatic setting.

Sean Penn brilliantly plays the lead character, whose car blows a radiator hose out in the middle of the Arizona desert, and the closest town is that of Superior, AZ, a dirt-road town with barely 1,000 people living there, if that. Penn goes through hell from the beginning when random characters in the city want something from him and in return, it drives him to try his best to get the hell out of Superior. Everything during his days in Superior is centered around money and the fact that he has hardly any. So he gets schemed into murders, and he gets whatever little he has taken away from him (his train ticket gets ripped up by the local hoodlum, TNT, again brilliantly played by Joaquin Phoenix, and he has several full bottles of beverages broken for different reasons). Therefore, he's constantly running in circles to get out of this town.

There is an all-star cast (back then, and now) of actors: Jennifer Lopez (a better singer than actress), Nick Nolte, Joaquin Phoenix, Billy Bob Thornton (the best among the bunch as the hick mechanic), Sean Penn, Claire Danes, Liv Tyler (only for a second in the train station), and Jon Voight...all packed into a nice DVD. The music had that comic, light-hearted side to it (with the country sound of a jew's-harp played over violin or whatever, etc) which helped you to see the irony that is driving him to madness in this town. Again the camera shots were awesome, and they had that Oliver Stone quality of the 90's where he would switch frames with the villain of the movie with an animal skull and switch the point-of-view to see what the actors are seeing, and so on.

I didn't like the ending so much. I kind of wanted things to resolve themselves, but instead, things just keep on falling into the bad-luck-category of his life. I also hated Jennifer Lopez's delivery of lines (just like in any other movie with her...The Cell, etc) because they feel so fake and put on that you know the director was just looking for T&A for the film. Also she doesn't play a native American very well. She has a thick accent straying too much towards Latino that you don't pick up on any cultural change until you get the story.

Overall, though, (bad point aside) it is a brilliant movie that is easy to watch if you like the other Stone films. I had to give it a 9/10 for great performances, great music, awesome story, and everything in between. Go out and buy it if your a fan of any of the actors listed above, or if you are trying to find a great weekend film with friends.