Vanishing Point (1971)

What a waste of my time!!!

recommended

Excellent, a Must See

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Released in 1971, "Vanishing Point" stars Barry Newman as Kowalski, a pill-popping former racer and police officer, who bets that he can deliver a supercharged car from Denver to San Francisco in 15 hours. The police in four states try to apprehend him as a DJ (Cleavon Little) supports him on the airwaves. Dean Jagger plays a geezer Kowalski runs into in the desert.This is a cult flick about the adventures of a rebel without a cause. While it has similarities to 1969's "Easy Rider," it's not as compelling and the subtext isn't as good (see my review of "Easy Rider").The story is a big middle finger to what was called "the establishment" at a time when the Vietnam War was making a wreck of America's social cohesion. Kowalski was part of that establishment when he was a cop, but became disillusioned after he exposed corruption and was punished for it, but heralded by the counterculture. Kowalski had seen the underbelly of the "pig" and didn't want to be part of it. At the beginning he drives off the road and you see him looking at some derelict vehicles. He increasingly realizes HE is a derelict on the side of the road with nowhere to go. What better next stop than oblivion? The climax is his *beep* off moment to go out on HIS terms. Three years later "Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry" sorta ripped it off. While that movie lacks the interesting (and ambiguous) subtext of "Vanishing Point," it's a more compelling watch. Despite the many car chases, "Vanishing Point" is surreal and even languid, embellished by a listless score (e.g the opening) and acid rock tracks throughout; while I don't like the former, most of the latter tracks are good and fit the ambiance of the movie.Then there's the naked blond on the motorcycle sequence. Someone incredulously asked: "How could he possibly turn down a sexy naked blonde? What's his problem?!" I guess sexiness is in the eye of the beholder because I didn't find her all that sexy. Sure, she has a pretty face, but her body is nearly as un-curvy as a 12 year-old girl. But some guys prefer thinner women and that's cool; to each his own. In addition, Kowalski was still grieving over his true love. Moreover, the naked blond didn't play the game of seduction, which takes time and imagination. Instead she prematurely throws her entire hand on the table and it simply doesn't turn Kowalski on. Lastly, despite it being the "free love" era (1970), Kowalski was much older (and arguably nobler) than the average hippie; as such, he didn't feel it proper to take advantage of the mate of the guy who was selflessly helping him (at least not without his clear permission).The movie runs 99 minutes and was shot in Colorado, Utah, Nevada and Arizona.GRADE: B- COMMENTARY ON THE MEANING ***SPOILER ALERT*** (Don't read further unless you've seen the movie) In an interview Barry Newman very seriously explained Kowalski's actions at the end: "He thought he could make it through; and that was the reason for the smile just prior to the impact." I don't question this since the actor himself would have more insights about the movie than the viewer, but even his answer is ambiguous. It could mean (and probably does) that Kowalski thought he could make it through to the other side, i.e. leave the physical plane for the spiritual one and the (possible) freedom thereof. After all, he sees "the light" between the blades of the bulldozers while approaching. Keep in mind that Kowalski was hopped up on a lot of drugs. As such, he doesn't commit suicide in the sense he wants to die, but rather kills himself in the accident because he BELIEVES he'll make it through; physically or spiritually, it doesn't matter. He believed.

With a lot of nice landscape scenery.But the movie is rather poorly put together,but you can see where Walter hill got his radio idea to the warriors from.This is a road movie if I ever seen one.Not sure if it's the first nor the greatest,but a road movie none the less. But cause of the way its put together, it's sadly only mildly entertaining. I dunno if the importance of the backstory on kowalski ended on the cutting room floor, or it was put together this way on purpose. But The back story comes in minor flashback sequences, and I think they are suppose to be relevant in terms of getting to know the background of our antihero.For me it just doesn't work,cause they have skipped too much on how he got be where he is, when you meet him.Some of the scenes in the movie are really confusing at times. For instance when he could have avoided a roadblock by simply going around them,he flee from them instead.While other times he simply do just that,drive around them And you never know why it was so important to get the car to Sand Francisco.There are a lot of hinting or implying that girls he meet have some sort of connection to he's past,but they never really clarify it.Is it just that they remind him of someone he once had a connection with,or are they the girls from the past he sees in he's flashback?

Vanishing Point is the type of movie rarely seen these days. It has so many identities, a car chase movie simply being one of them. It both deconstructs and pays tribute to the American love affair with the automobile and cinema. It's also a love letter to the 60s, playing up themes of freedom and escaping oppression. Most importantly, it's a classic heroes journey. Kowalski, the hero has a mission, a romantically Americana mission, and he let's nothing get in his way. Movies like Vanishing Point aren't duplicated, because they cannot be. They are products of their time, a tribute to both films and ideals past.

A guy driving a white Dodge Challenger is being chased by helicopters and cop cars. Further down the road, at a town's entrance, cops are setting up a road block with dozers no less.We then start at the beginning. The driver is to deliver the gorgeous Challenger in San Francisco, he takes some speed as he offers to be there sooner than anyone expects. At first it looks like he's driving leisurely but cops on motorcycles ask him to pull over and he drives them off the road. The chase is on, spanning Colorado, Nevada, and California. On the way he meets a guy who collects snakes in the middle of the desert and exchanges them for food with snakecharming Christians. He further meets a pretty gas station attendant, a biker and his pretty nude girl, two homosexuals who are actually out to grab him for the police, a pretty hitchhiker in the night. Wherever he goes he asks for drugs, and all the women he meets have a thing for him, even though he doesn't have a lot to say about anything.While this is going on we meet a black radio dj who is blind, has an affinity for the driver's "cause" (whatever that may be) and has a special talent/connection with the driver. He knows what the cops are up to, he engages in a "conversation" with the driver hearing what he answers to his questions.Little by little we also learn about the driver's past in flashbacks. He used to be a moral cop who stopped a colleague from raping a girl they arrested. He was a good race car driver. He had a surfer girlfriend who died.None of this changes his inevitable path, and he doesn't seem to care. Perhaps it's the drugs, the endless driving in the desert, but he acts as if wherever he goes there will be a way out, a shortcut, a dirt road he can take.Vanishing Point is a surprisingly empty movie. The driving scenes are OK for the time I guess, although something tells me the stunts could have been better. There's not a whole lot of accidents and mayhem, just a lot of driving and scenes of the guy's empty expression. To make this tolerable we get a whole lot of loud music instead of various genres. I would like to have seen more of the small towns and their people- we just get short glances.What surprised me was how little Hollywood has changes over the decades. In a way this movie has everything that Hollywood is criticized for- it portrays easy drug use, gratuitous (but welcome) nudity, white evil racist cops, stereotypical blacks, superficiality. Given how famous this movie is, I sure expected more depth, more meaning.