Details
Movie Description
Oliver Stone shelved his social conscience while making this vicious nest-of-vipers noir. Sean Penn stars as Bobby Cooper, a gambler on the run who is forced to lay up in a desolate Arizona whistlestop with car trouble. Desperate and broke, he receives an offer from the middle-aged Jake McKenna (Nick Nolte) to kill his beautiful young wife, Grace (Jennifer Lopez). Initially reluctant, he's finally forced to contemplate the deal. But the fun doesn't really begin until Grace hires Bobby to kill Jake. The film is based on the modern noir novel STRAY DOGS by John Ridley.
Synopsis
A noirish departure for issue-oriented director Oliver Stone, U-TURN stars Sean Penn as Bobby, a gambler on the run who has the misfortune to have his radiator hose blow in a godforsaken Arizona hole-in-the-wall. He quickly meets the stunning Grace McKenna (Jennifer Lopez), and they go to her place to become better acquainted. When her husband, real estate king Jake (Nick Nolte), catches the two together in the bedroom, they fight, but at a later meeting, he proposes that Bobby kill his wife for a reasonable sum. At first the gambler turns him down, but when all his money is torn to shreds in a freak accident, he realizes that he won't be able to get his car fixed unless he goes along. Grace's considerable charm, combined with her account of the mistreatment she's suffered at her husband's hands, dissuades Bobby from the job. But she now offers him the same deal to kill Jake. To add to his problems, Bobby is being hawked by the suspicious sheriff (Powers Boothe) and has been targeted by local badass Toby (Joaquin Phoenix), who thinks Bobby is after his girlfriend, Jenny (Clare Danes). Penn turns in a fine performance in this overripe noir, and the photograpy is excellent. The film is based on the excellent short novel STRAY DOGS by John Ridley, who also served as one of the film's producers.
Film Notes
DVD Features:
Region 1
Keep Case
Widescreen
Pan & Scan - 1.33
Additional Release Material:
Trailers - 1. Original Theatrical Trailer
Interactive Features:
Scene Selections
Screenwriter John Ridley, on whose novel (STRAY DOGS) U-TURN is based, created an animated online series for urbanentertainment.com called UNDERCOVER BROTHER.
Industry Reviews
"...A raucously joke-filled black comedy....Stone's new wild style converts U TURN into a roaring broadside of colliding images..."
Sight and Sound - p.58-9 - Philip Strick (05/01/1998)
"...Richly funny....Oliver Stone finally proves he has a sense of humor in U-Turn..."
USA Today - p.8D - Mike Clark
"...U-Turn becomes a showcase for the filmmaker's terrific arsenal of visual mannerisms and free-association imagery..."
New York Times - p.E18 - Janet Maslin (10/03/1997)
"...[Stone] infuses the genre with his dazzling gift for ambiguous poetic menace....[He] makes every shot a jolt, a sliver of ominous perception..."
Entertainment Weekly - Owen Gleiberman (10/10/1997)
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