U Turn (1997)

An overlooked Oliver Stone film with a twisted plot and first-rate cast

Oliver Stone's U Turn is a small town Arizona story with love crosses and plot twists galore. A drifter (Sean Penn) breaks down in the Arizona back-woods and gets entangled with a spitfire (Jennifer Lopez) who wants to leave her twisted, abusive husband (Nick Nolte). The husband, on the other hand, wants his wife murdered. The town mechanic (Billy Bob Thornton) is a greasy local who dislikes city slicker outsiders and doesn't aim to make Penn's character's life any easier. Our hero also gets mixed up with a cute local waitress (Claire Danes) seeking refuge from her abusive boyfriend (Joaquin Phoenix).

The movie is a day-in-the-life-of look at a strange little desert town with hidden undercurrents and long-standing family secrets. With an all-star cast and plot upheavals galore, the viewing is a full-on thrill-ride. Highly recommended. Also check out Clay Pigeons.
April 29, 2007

Ridley + Stone + Penn = serious rock 'n roll.

U Turn (Oliver Stone, 1997)

I'm a big fan of Stray Dogs, the John Ridley novel upon which U-Turn is based, and I avoided the film for while because, really, how many film adaptations of your best-loved novels actually work the way you want them to? I shouldn't have worried, though; U-Turn is the stuff, most decidedly.

The plot: Bobby Cooper, an on-the-run tennis pro (Sean Penn) has his car conk out on him just shy of a very, very weird little desert town. One of its residents, Grace McKenna (Jennifer Lopez), immediately catches his eye, but he soon finds out she's married to a nasty old character named Jake (Nick Nolte), who'd just as soon see her dead-- and offers Bobby fifty grand to do the deed. Immediately, a complex web of deceit unfurls among all the characters, complicated by a number of even stranger events happening at just the wrong time to make Bobby's life miserable.

The main thing that sticks out about this movie is the caliber of its cast, and the caliber of the performances they give. When you have to stick Jon Voight and Billy Bob Thornton seventh and eighth in credits order, you've got a high-powered cast working for you. All of them are spot on. The plot moves forward at almost blinding speed (just as it did in the book; Ridley adapted his own novel), and the viewer has very little time to do anything but clench his teeth and hang on for the ride until the final credits roll. It's just plain fun. I'm not sure why I stopped watching Oliver Stone flicks in the late eighties (okay, yeah I am-- Born on the Fourth of July, The Doors, and JFK back to back got a little heavy in to the world of way-out conspiracy theory for me), but I'm glad I've started again. *** ½
April 12, 2007

Not Stone's best, but thoroughly entertaining

Anyone who doubts Jennifer Lopez's acting abilities, as I once had, needs to see this movie. In this movie, she shifts from seductive and manipulating to vulnerable and desperate and back again with surprising ease. Jennifer Lopez can be a good actress when she isn't stuck in a bad movie.

And now to the rest of the film. U Turn treads on familiar territory of the mysterious drifter Bobby (Sean Penn) who, on his way to pay his debt to some kind of mob boss, finds himself stranded in a creepy desert town. He quickly becomes enraptured with the town sex object Grace (Lopez) whose husband (Nolte) catches them together. But instead of getting mad, Grace's husband asks Bobby to kill her so that he can cash in on her life insurance. When Bobby is robbed at a convenience store, he is left without the money he owes to the mob, so he takes up the offer to kill Grace. Thus begins a very complicated and violent series of events.

My only complaints are the underused characters of the wild-child town Lolita (Claire Danes) and her very short-tempered boyfriend (Joaquin Phoenix). It is kind of funny, though, to see Joaquin Phoenix basically dressed like Johnny Cash in a scene where "Ring of Fire" is played in the background.

U Turn also treads on a lot of the same metaphorical territory as Stone's Natural Born Killers--the desert, dead animals, prophetic Native Americans, etc. In this way it sometimes feels like a rehash of Natural Born Killers; and if I hadn't seen that movie, I'd probably like U Turn even more. But the story is gripping enough and the performances are intense enough that the movie is definitely worth watching. December 3, 2006

Great film noir

I am not a big fan of Olvier Stone, but this is a great movie with interesting characters and great actors. I don't want to reveal any details and spoil the movie, but it is great if you enjoy film noir type movies. October 24, 2006

My two-cents worth...

This is a great, dark, funny, scary, roller-coaster ride of a modern noir B-movie that felt like it was discovered in Jim Thompson's waste paper bin. It might be pastiche, but it's entertaining pastiche. I don't know! Give you people a good film and, firstly, you don't go and see it and, secondly, if you do catch it on DVD, all you do is moan, moan, moan, not even like would-be critics but distributors or accountants. Everyone knows by now that the B pictures are usually much better than the A pictures. Now, of course, they make B pictures with A budgets. True pulp should be made for chump change, not $20 million, with big stars. For me, Stone is interesting but deeply flawed. He just loves the big subject. Here he has virtually no subject at all, and it's great fun seeing him take a breather and let his hair down. I understand this did no, or little, business but now has cult status, which is justice of a sort and probably the best you can hope for these days. Hay, lighten up. Have a few beers and slip it on the DVD. If you're disappointed then you have no taste and deserve what the studios throw at you. By the way, I'm an English noir fan. What do I know? October 20, 2006

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