Vanishing Point (1971)

  This is not the movie I wanted to be reviewing today.  I was all geared up for Black Swan and have been since I first heard of it this summer.  It was going to be my real kick-off for the holiday movie season.  There are only three theaters carrying it in the DC area as of yesterday and the closest one to me is Georgetown.  Georgetown!  It might as well be on the other side of the moon.

I take that back.  There's ample parking on the other side of the moon.

Why didn't I discover the Black Swan thing on Friday, like a true fan?  Well, kiddies, Friday I was drunk.  I came home from a busy day at work to discover that my internet had been shut off.  Since I was relatively certain I had paid that bill, I called the cable company to find out what was up.  Some unscrupulous person had used my wireless network to illegally download Knight and Day.  True story. I then spent an hour on the phone with some poor bastard in India (again, also true) to try and figure out how to fix the security on my router.  Then I remembered that the only reason I even had the wireless network set up was for my TiVo in the living room.  But I gave away my TiVo like three years ago when my cable company threw in a DVR as an upgrade.
So I unhooked the router, hung up on the Indian, and plugged the cable directly into the computer.  After all that, I needed a drink.

Anyway, Vanishing Point.

**Probable Spoilers**

I don't know why Netflix thinks I'm suicidal or I enjoy seeing other people commit suicide, but it apparently does.

For those of you who didn't pay attention during the talking parts of Death Proof, Vanishing Point is one of the great car-chase movies of the 70's.  The star of the movie is a white 1970 Dodge Challenger.  The guy driving the car is named Kowalski.  Kowalski delivers cars for a living and is scheduled to deliver the Challenger to San Francisco from Denver.  According to Google Maps, that's over 1200 miles and about 20 hours.  For no apparent reason, Kowalski makes a bet with his drug connection that he can make it in 15 hours.  Which drug, you ask?  Speed, of course.

So Kowalski sets off under his self-imposed deadline.  From little vignettes, we learn that he is a former professional racer (motorcycles and cars) and before that, he was a police officer.  This is supposed to engender sympathy in the watcher, that here is a tortured soul who has taken to the open road in an attempt to expurgate his sins with speed.  What it said to me was that here was a deeply troubled man coked to the gills behind the wheel of a super-charged car speeding toward oblivion as fast as it will take him.

I'd draw comparisons to Cool Hand Luke but there's no way Barry Newman could ever be as charismatic as Paul Newman.  Not in a million years.

I guess if you like car chases or if you like the 70s this would be a good film.  Maybe.  I don't know.

It was a nice car, though.