Go (1999) Review

 

Go (1999)

Go follows three sets of friends in three wild situations, all colliding in the Los Angeles underground party scene after a drug deal gone bad on Christmas Eve.

Frankly, I don’t know what I expected from this Doug Liman helmed flick. Perhaps something along the lines of Swingers, but I was very wrong. It’s hard to place Go and where it goes from its intersecting point because each chapter diverges in wildly different directions, always progressing from good, to crazy so quick. In it’s sub 2 hour runtime we get a hit-and-run, a shot bouncer, a threesome (within a hotel room on fire, which is a perfect metaphor for this film now that I think about it), a car chase sequence, an ecstasy trip, a failed drug deal, almost attempted murder (thrice), and so much more (just to name a few). Every time you begin to grasp what’s happening, another wrench is tossed into the plot. That said though, it’s expertly controlled chaos, always with that touch of madness, never going too far to seem farfetched.

I think what makes the minor disasters of this film so unique, aside from the situations, is that it all generally starts at one point. Everything goes to shit from that moment at the store, for all three parties. Yet, at the end of the day, they all go back to work, and resume their lives. There’s no groundbreaking revelations to be had, just exactly what’s on screen—what a weekend.

What makes so much of it stand out though is the acting, of which we get a pretty big cast starring Katie Holmes, Desmond Askew, Scott Wolf, Jay Mohr, Taye Diggs, William Fichtner, Timothy Olyphant, and Sarah Polley. Each character brought such a vasty different energy with Diggs, Fichtner, and Olyphant really standing out as my personal favorites (honorable mention to Mohr and Wolf’s relationship, which is possibly the funniest bit of this movie).

Go, directed by Doug Liman, shares the obvious similarities to Pulp Fiction but gleefully does its own thing, somehow fleshing out each and every character in a movie where the characters are the heart and LA’s party scene is their vessel, in this imaginative sophomore follow up for Liman.

8.5/10