Go (1999)

★★★
Go represents the first movie for which I wrote a full-length review. I saw it in early 1999 at a special screening on my college campus. The crowd was a rambunctious lot, with everyone clearly having a great time. Upon the movie's theatrical release a few weeks later, a pair of reviews appeared in the campus newspaper. They were terrible, and not just because they were negative. They were poorly constructed. In fact, they didn't even describe the movie, but were instead tirades against the Hollywood trend of copying the structure of hit movies and reconstructing them into a new package. Pulp Fiction is the obvious inspiration for Go, so the point is not invalid. There were other examples from the time. The Aaron Eckhart vehicle Thursday was one, as was 2 Days in the Valley. When I read those Go reviews, I thought to myself that I could do better. It wasn't that the writers disliked it. They didn't get into why Go was bad in and of itself, inspiration notwithstanding.

I read my original 1999 review. At 364 words, it isn't good (this review has a word tally of 1158). I praised the movie, but like any other skill, writing takes time to develop. I feel it is now sufficiently developed to offer a proper rebuttal to those campus newspaper writers, although I have no idea who they are and what they're doing today. That's fine. Quentin Tarantino once said that artists steal, meaning that Tarantino himself would not care if his outline was used elsewhere. He has openly admitted to the Hong Kong film City on Fire as key to Reservoir Dogs's climactic ending, although I think stealing (or homage, if you prefer) from another movie shouldn't be done recklessly. In Go, writer John August and director Doug Liman do take the fractured timeline approach and repurpose it here, but the details are their own. The three intersecting storylines are distinct from Pulp Fiction's night with Mia Wallace, Butch's escape from town and Bonnie situation. August's stories are sensational, and if the format used here was the best way to tell them, then I'm not going to argue against it. It works.

A supermarket is the jumping off point for the three stories. Ronna (Sarah Polley) is a cashier who's working long hours to make enough money to pay the rent. She accepts an offer from fellow cashier Simon (Desmond Askew) to take his shift so he can go to Las Vegas. It's still not enough, so when two customers (actors Adam and Zack) offer to pay her to obtain drugs for them, she agrees. After work, Ronna visits drug dealer Todd (Timothy Olyphant), but miscommunication on the price leads Ronna to leave behind collateral so that she can get more money from Adam and Zack, who were actually looking for Simon in the first place, since he's their normal buyer. In Vegas, Simon and his friends get in a whirlwind of trouble after a botched visit to a strip club leaves the bouncer shot in the arm. Simon left a credit card behind, but it turns out to be Todd's card. Elsewhere, Adam and Zack (Scott Wolf and Jay Mohr) are wearing a wire for undercover cop Burke (William Fichtner), who has an interesting proposition for the two young actors when he's done with them.

These storylines intersect at various points and feature more characters who enter and exit the narrative as needed. Pulp Fiction's stamp is everywhere, though the generational gap serves as the primary difference maker. Tarantino's film takes place in L.A.'s criminal underworld and featured Baby Boomer characters getting in and out of trouble, all scored to songs taken primarily from the '60s and '70s. Liman's film focuses on Generation Xers and the trends unique to them. Ecstasy and raves are the common denominator between the three stories, with a hip '90s soundtrack to accompany the madness (I was overjoyed to hear Len's "Steal My Sunshine"). John August's script does a deep dive into this world and acknowledges the absurdness of it all by injecting humor into every development. The movie takes place over a long night, and everybody gets in trouble, whether it's with the law, low-level mobsters or an angry drug dealer.

In casting Go, the producers culled cast members from various sources that, when put together, captured life in the '90s for young adults. Katie Holmes was the embodiment of innocence from Dawson's Creek. Her appearance here could represent Joey Potter several years later, after moving away from home and feeling emboldened because she's no longer under parental supervision. As an aside, I quit watching Dawson's Creek during its high school years, so I don't know what happened to Joey Potter later in the series. Scott Wolf was known for his run on Party of Five, which I did watch to the end. In that show he was responsible though still naïve, while here as Adam he's a dimwitted Hollywood actor who does drugs. He is playing against type. James Duval (one of Simon's friends) and Nathan Bexton (a friend of Ronna) hail from Gregg Araki's Teen Apocalypse Trilogy, which embraced a nihilist outlook of the future for Gen X. They're right at home here. Sarah Polley's career up to this point had featured a variety of roles. She rose through the ranks of Canadian independent cinema (she appeared in several Atom Egoyan movies), bringing some indie street cred to the production.

A few others represent personalities that became visible during the decade. Breckin Meyer plays a white guy who talks like he's black. He's like the White Guy from The Offspring's "Pretty Fly for a White Guy" music video, but with more screentime. The connection would have been more obvious if the actor from the video could have played the Meyer role. Taye Diggs is on hand to offer an incredulous response to Meyer's wannabe persona. He's also the most rational of the Vegas group, finding himself among misfits when he just wants to have an uneventful weekend. These actors occupying the same movie results in a grab bag of '90s experiences being funneled into a hyperkinetic concoction, with hilarious results. Go has an agenda that differentiates it from Pulp Fiction, so obsessing over their similar framework is a moot point.

This is something that those university newspaper writers should have realized. I emailed the newspaper to call them out on their shallow reviews. One of them responded, declaring that Go was so bad that it wasn't worthy of a review. Negative reviews are essential to the craft and should be provided when necessary. Analyzing what went wrong is just as important as analyzing what went right. Their failure to fulfill their duties jumpstarted my own desire to examine movies beneath the surface. I suppose I could thank them for that, because here I am over 20 years later (minus my 12-year hiatus), still performing this task.

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