Good morning/afternoon my fellow crime fiction fans and we are here gathered today at the crime fiction convention. I have been given the opportunity to be here and talk to you about the crime movie Gone in 60 Seconds. The movie I will be discussing is a remake of the 1974 of the same name and was directed by Henry Helical. The remake does not have the exact same plot, because in the original movie the protagonist and his crew stole the cars only for cold hard cash. In the remake, however, the protagonist performed the crime because he had to save his brother’s life.
I am standing here to tell you how this movie has reflected and challenged society ideas at the time when it was made. But before I delve further into that I think it will be necessary to briefly talk about the plot of the movie, because not many people know this movie. The movie starts off with Kip, our protagonist’s brother, stealing a very expensive car and ending up losing the car because of the police. Due to him failing to submit the car he is tortured by the antagonist, named Calamari in the movie.
NICOLAS Cage, or Randall Rains, then comes into the movie and strikes a deal with he antagonist, and the deal is he steals 50 high end cars in 3 days. He is forced to do Calamari’s bidding because if he fails to do it his brother’s life will be taken. Randall achieves the impossible by acquiring the help of his old buddies who, like him, are very good at what they do, which is boosting cars. Angelina Jones is also in the movie, and her portrayal in the movie challenges the ideas of society which I will go into detail later on. Tracking down the 50 cars is easy, but the time limit is the problem.
Little did Randall and his team know that the detective who has been tracking Randall down for a long time has been tipped off about the heist and is lying in wait. Randall has changed his life around, much like his old friends. He now makes a living out of teaching kids how to go-kart, Otto has gone from chopping up cars into restoring them and Attlee is now a driving instructor. The movie does have a comedy side to it, in the scene where Attlee is seen as instructing an Asian woman how to drive. There is a stereotype about Asians not being able to drive well and the scene supports it.
The movie remake was made in 2000, making it fairly modern. The original movie was filmed in 1974 and directed by Henry Helical. This is a caper type of movie, as it involves staging multiple heists. The movie delivers most of the conventions of a caper movie, a hero who is reluctant to do the Job, a wounded babe (in this case it is Sway which is Angelina Joliet and how she is still emotionally upset that Memphis left her), endangered relative, in this case his brother Kip who gets in real deep trouble for messing up a Job, a villain who will kill if he doesn’t get what he wants, and cops who are outclassed.
Caper movies usually centre around one Job to end all Jobs. This Job is the kind that no one would ever think of executing because it s almost impossible. A caper movie must have a mastermind, and in Gone in 60 seconds it is Randall Rains. He is a charismatic guy who is obviously protective of his family. Randall is in love with something larger, something deeper than acquiring gold, diamonds or cold hard cash. A mastermind cannot carry out his plans without the requiring the talents of old friends of whom he has spent a long time practicing stealing with.
The themes in this movie include love of family, brotherhood, trust and one of the main things I have noticed is the difference between the wisdom and knowledge of the organized professionals and the impulsiveness and lack of knowledge of the amateurs. The impulsiveness of one of the amateurs almost led to the discovery of their plans and it was averted by the cunning minds of the professionals. Randall crew is a very good representation of brotherhood or imitates and it is very closely linked to trust.
