U Turn ** (1997, Sean Penn, Jennifer Lopez, Nick Nolte) – Classic Movie Review 2083

Director Oliver Stone goes for overkill again with another gorefest in this 1997 pounding mix of his 1994 Natural Born Killers and film noir that gives your senses a hammering.

Sean Penn stars as a punk on the run from the Russian mobsters he owes $13,000 to, finds himself in deadly trouble after his car breaks down in an Arizona small-town full of wackos. He’s soon involved with the trampy Apache femme fatale (Jennifer Lopez), who’s married to the much older, jealous Nick Nolte, both of whom propose he should kill their spouse.

An extravagant excess of Nineties new wave gothic style overbalances Stone’s relentlessly quirky and unpleasant film noir, dripping his overblown Natural Born Killers bag of tricks (some of them admittedly impressive) all over what could have been a taut and compelling little thriller.

Penn is entirely acceptable in a huge star role that just needs someone who can be more compelling and sympathetic. Broad though his performance is though, it anchors the movie, fortunately, since all the other roles are performed as caricatures, playing out a cynical screenplay that produces a hollow-centred, violent, really rather sick, movie.

Stone hasn’t learned the difference between hardboiled tough-guy genre thrills and sheer bloody murder, and taut and subtle just aren’t in his vocabulary. This twisting thriller tale desperately cries out for John Dahl’s Last Seduction- Red Rock West touch.

Lopez and Nolte are compelling enough, Powers Booth as the sheriff and Billy Bob Thornton as the gas station mechanic are engagingly over-the-top, but Jon Voight’s local blind sage, Julie Hagerty’s waitress and Joaquin Phoenix’s crazed kid neglect the truth to try to be entertaining. Also in the cast are Laurie Metcalf, Bo Hopkins, Claire Danes, Liv Tyler, Abraham Benrubi and Valery Nikolaev.

John Ridley writes the screenplay from his own book Stray Dogs. Ennio Morricone’s score is just too much on top of all the other extravagances. It was filmed in 42 days in Superior, Arizona.

Rated R for strong violence, sexuality and language.

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© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2083

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