Go!
Dir: Doug Liman
1999
****
Go is a strange film, very much of its time and something of a mark that acknowledges the end of a decade. In many respects it is the quintessential 90s film. Released in 1999, it had already picked all the great styles and techniques of the decade and pieced them all together to make something fun, unique and, as it turns out, a now cult classic. The interweaving stories and off-topic dialogue is straight out of The Acid House and Pulp Fiction (among many), the directional style is heavily influenced by Trainspotting – they are also both about drugs - and the killer soundtrack is thanks to all three. It certainly wasn’t the only film to copy this popular 90s style but it was the only one I can think of that made something unique, something individual and essentially likable. Although much of the film’s style is recognisable, I would argue that it was purely on-trend for the time, with the bulk of the story based on an earlier idea writer John August had which was made into a short film. It was decided that it had legs, so he wrote extra stories to go with it. Go is by no means a copy of any other film – something that I’ve heard many people pass it off as. The story begins around Christmas, with a girl called Ronna working overtime at her supermarket job to avoid being evicted. She is approached at work by two guys called Adam and Zack, who ask if they can buy 20 hits of ecstasy they were originally hoping to buy from her absent co worker, Simon. Needing the money, Ronna approaches Simon's dealer after work, and asks to buy the drugs but, as she is unable to pay the full amount, leaves her friend and other co worker Claire Montgomery with him as collateral. Before she can give Adam and Zack the drugs, Ronna is hounded by a stranger, who is desperate for the drugs himself. Suspicious that this stranger is a cop, she flushes the drugs down the toilet. Ronna then steals over the counter pills to replace the ecstasy she disposed of, helped by her friend and another co worker Manny, who swallowed two of the ecstasy pills earlier without knowing their strength. Ronna gives 20 of the fake pills to Todd, and she, Claire, and Manny make their way to a rave, where she sells the pills she stole as ecstasy.Todd soon discovers the pills are fake and pursues Ronna, discovering her at the rave. Ronna flees with Manny, but he is overcome by the drugs. Ronna leaves him in an alley and promises to return with her car, but Todd confronts her with a gun in the parking lot. Before he can shoot Ronna, she is hit by a car that speeds away. Then the story restarts from the perspective of Simon (Ronna’s absent co-worker), who is on a trip to Las Vegas with Marcus, Tiny and Singh. Tiny and Singh come down with food poisoning pretty much as soon as they get there (‘Never eat the shrimp!”), leaving Simon and Marcus to their own devices. Simon crashes a wedding and has sex with two of the bridesmaids before their hotel room accidentally catches fire. Simon and Marcus leave the hotel, stealing a car from someone who thinks Marcus is a parking attendant. The pair then go to a strip club, where Simon orders a private lap dance for them using Todd's loaned credit card, but he enrages the bouncer by groping one of the strippers. Simon shoots said bouncer with a gun that he found in the stolen car, and he and Marcus flee to the hotel, rousing Tiny and Singh. The four barely escape the bouncer but as soon as they’re gone, the bouncer traces Todd's address from the credit card Simon left at the strip club. The story then changes perspective to Adam and Zack from the beginning of the film. They are both actors in a daytime soap opera who are secretly in a relationship. Having been busted for drug possession, they are forced to work with Burke, a police detective and the stranger who approached Ronna earlier on in the film, to entrap their dealer. Adam is fitted with a wire. When they cannot find their usual dealer, Simon, the two convince Ronna to come up with the drugs. When Ronna arrives later to make the deal, Zack has a change of heart and secretly warns her away (something we didn’t see in the earlier scene), leading her to dispose of the drugs in the bathroom. Things then get even more complicated and brilliant when all four stories combine. After the film’s climactic finale, the characters are left asking “What should we do for New Year’s?”. Go reminds me of being a student, the 90s – a decade that I loved – was coming to an end but it felt like the party could continue into the 00s. It was a great film to end the decade on. Rather shockingly, the original foreign financing for the film fell through at the last minute because the film lacked a "bankable white male star." However, Columbia Pictures stepped in and financed the film. While there isn’t a big name star, it did have some of TV’s hottest actors and many supporting actors who were liked and well known at the time including; William Fichtner, Katie Holmes, Jay Mohr, Sarah Polley, Scott Wolf, Taye Diggs, Breckin Meyer, Timothy Olyphant, Desmond Askew, Jane Krakowski, J. E. Freeman and Melissa McCarthy in her film debut. The title is apt as it is all ‘go’ and also ‘go’ is slang for speed. It’s certainly an adrenaline-fueled ride and is directed perfectly by Doug Liman. For me though, it is the electric soundtrack that really frames the film. I couldn’t tell you how well its dated because for me it’s a nostalgia piece, a piece of authentic 90s gold, sadly the last of its kind.