Doug Liman’s sophomore effort is still a pretty entertaining ode to sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll. While its edge has faded somewhat, a new Blu-ray release offers up a great excuse to catch up with these characters whose actions might seem a little more stupid than when you watched it ten years ago.
First-time screenwriter John August (who has gone on to successful collaborations with Tim Burton via his screenplays for ‘Big Fish’, ‘Charlie & the Chocolate Factory’ and ‘Corpse Bride’) fashions an unmistakably Tarantinoish script here with interweaving plot threads and snappy, pop-culture infused dialogue. Well, dialogue, if filtered through the Sex! Sex! Sex! Drugs! Drugs! Drugs! mindset of the 18 – 21 demo.
A strong up-and-coming cast was assembled here with some taking more advantage of opportunities than others. Film starts off with a stressed-out grocery store checkout girl Ronna (Sarah Polley) who desperately needs cash to pay her rent so is forced to feel in for another employee, the obnoxious Simon (Desmond Askew) who escapes to Vegas for the weekend.
When a couple of small-time actors Adam and Zach (Scott Wolf and Jay Mohr) approach her in the grocery store line looking to score some drugs usually provided by Simon, Ronna can’t resist the easy money and hits up Simon’s apartment-dwelling dealer Todd (Timothy Olyphant) for the requested hits of ecstasy.
Todd doesn’t do ‘favors’, however, and when Ronna is short some cash, she arranges to leave grocery store bud Claire (Katie Holmes) with Todd as collateral until Ronna gets the cash from the actors.
When she shows up and finds a ridiculously obvious sting set-up with the actors, she drowns the ecstasy and bails. But what to do about the cash or pills she owes the dealer? In a ballsy move, she replaces the now gone pills with prescription pills, gets her pal back and heads to a big Christmas rave where she finds she can sell aspirin to dumb teens desperate to look cool.
Doesn’t take long for Todd to figure out he’s been scammed and he heads to the rave to settle the score but a yellow Miata seems to do the job for him by running her over and leaving her for dead in a ditch. Story then rewinds and picks back up with Simon as Ronna takes his shift.
Back in ‘Swingers’ territory, Simon heads to Vegas with some chums including Marcus (Taye Diggs) and after a drug-fueled fling with two bridesmaids find themselves at the Crazy Horse where the perpetually antsy and dumb Simon ignores the house rules and grabs the ass of a stripper which starts a tussle that ends in Simon shooting a bouncer in the arm and escaping with Marcus.
Third less-interesting segment circles back to Adam and Zach who have their own motivations for trying to score some drugs and they get involved in a bizarre set-up with narcotics officer Burke (William Fichtner) and his wife Irene (Jane Krakowski). Plots eventually weave together with answers provided to questions brought up in earlier segments.
We get a fairly deft combination of dark humor, action and tense situations all pieced together to a rocking soundtrack. Doug Liman shows the directorial flash he will later show in ‘The Bourne Identity’ and ‘Mr. and Mrs. Smith’ and all of the cast seem to really be enjoying themselves with Polley bringing some indie cred and Wolf and Holmes clearly relishing some rougher material during their tv show breaks.
Askew and Diggs bring the ‘Swingers’ flavor while Fichtner and Olyphant make a capably creepy cop and drug dealer respectively.
If ten years later, it all doesn’t quite look to be as much fun as you remember, well, that’s probably because we’re all a bit older and wiser - when I was 20 and I watching in 1999, that rave looked like a blast, now, I would probably rather consume copious amounts of alcohol in the comfort of my own home.
The film is presented with a 2.35:1 AVC 1080p encode that suits the film but won’t knock your socks off. Most of this is due to the intentionally soft look of the film which mostly takes place at night.
A sort of rave, day-glo look that’s appropriate for the film but doesn’t necessarily lend itself to great high-def visuals, I doubt it can look much better but owners of the previous DVD might want to take a look first to see if it justifies the upgrade. An English TrueHD 5.1 track is provided and is more of an improvement over the DVD with dynamic music and action coming through crystal-clear.
Special Features include an audio commentary from director Doug Liman and editor Stephen Mirrione that’s okay presenting some fun stories as well as various anecdotes. A short ‘Making of’ featurette, almost half an hour of ‘Deleted Scenes’, three music videos: ‘New’ by Doubt, ‘Magic Carpet Ride’ by Philip Steir and ‘Steal My Sunshine’ by Len and BD-Live connectivity round out the extras.
‘Go’ remains an energizing good time that should provide more than enough night’s entertainment for newbie’s and the Blu-ray should rate a second look for established fans. The vid is simply okay though, so it might be worth renting first before you chuck the DVD.
Go [Blu-ray] is now available at Amazon . Visit the DVD database for more information.
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