Red Line (1996) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski)

What's that you say? Oh, that was The Thin Red Line? Well just think of this as another Red Line, but not as thin: a Red Line with real substance.

I think I should mention that the aesthetically inclined Mr Malick had nothing to do with this film. This one was directed by John Sjogren, who also give us such comparably aesthetic achievements as "The Thief and the Stripper." It's essentially a mob story with a cast that can best be described as eclectic. It features Michael Madsen, Corey Feldman, Dom DeLuise, Julie Strain, Roxana Zal, Chad McQueen and Jan-Michael Vincent. (It's sad to see Madsen and DeLuise having fallen so far from the a-list.)

Red Line synthetic motor oil (redlineoil.com) not only gave the film its title, but managed several product placement opportunities within the script. Normally, I'm a little uncomfortable with that kind of commercialism, but in this case, it was the highlight of the film. Besides, the director needed the money. They spent so much on car crashes that they could only afford one of the two Corey's. (Feldman wore a Sgt. Pepper coat to play a mobster, and had sex with 6'2" Julie Strain, who is nearly a foot taller!)

Chad McQueen plays a professional driver who is down on his luck when he gets a couple of lucrative but dangerous repo jobs from a mobster (Vincent). It turns out that the first one is just a test. Chad gets paid four grand to steal a Ferrari from under the nose of an even bigger mobster, and does so successfully. After such a success, he is hired to steal a car full of hidden diamonds from the police impound garage. McQueen gets greedy. He was hired to do the job for twenty grand, but decides to ask for $200,000 when he deduces the value of the car plus the diamonds.  Eventually, he figures out that he's in big trouble with both mobsters, and the only way out is for him to play them against each other. 

I guess that about half of the movie is driving and chase scenes, and about half of that footage was shot from a hood cam, which demonstrates how McQueen negotiated the twisting seaside roads, the L.A. River, the circuitous suburbs, and the warehouse districts, all to elude various mobsters and law enforcement officials. I think you'll really like the movie if you enjoy watching other people play video driving games, because that is exactly what this film is like.

Actually, the police were just props in the film. They would be chasing him for a while, and he'd simply slip away. They'd never call for back-up or helicopters or anything. When he evaded the police, he would keep driving around town in his unique wrecked white car with blue racing stripes, and he was never bothered by John Law, as if the police figured, "Well, he got away from the original pursuit, so he's free to go." He didn't even bother to re-paint the car after he escaped.

That wasn't the only silly thing in the movie. At one point he drops off his girl and tells her to wait, because he's about to get in a dangerous pursuit. He drives through about twenty streets to get out of the warehouse district. This is all shot with a hood cam. Trucks come out of their bays, cars cross in front of him, and he has to avoid them  - as I said, earlier, just like watching a video game. But the silly thing is that he drives for ten minutes to evade some baddies, including the usual stint through the L.A. River, and ends up crashing into a wall head-on to avoid a little girl on a bicycle, with the baddies hot on his tail.

Now you aren't going to believe what happens next, but this is what really happened:

1. Cut to his girl, witnessing the crash from the sidewalk, putting her hands to her face in terror. Remember, he dropped her off miles back.

2. Cut to him walking out of the car with some diamonds, just before the explosion. But - wait a minute - where are the bad guys that were just a few seconds behind him, and the reason he was driving so fast in the first place? Gone - and no further mention of them.

Got the idea? Top-notch stuff.

I thought that the only interesting thing about the movie was Jan-Michael Vincent's appearance. He made this film only days after his near-fatal wreck. In one scene you can see that he's actually wearing his hospital ID bracelet. His face was nearly destroyed by the accident, and the film was made while it was still early in the healing process. Vincent's face is filled with bruises, discoloration, swelling, stitches, missing flesh on his lips, you name it. They just wrote it all of that into the script. He refers to himself as "looking like Frankenstein," and some of the other characters also refer to his face. In addition to the facial distortion, he had trouble talking (his teeth, lips, and tongue were all damaged in the accident), and he couldn't do any physical activities, except standing and a little walking. I think he delivered about 75% of his lines while talking on the phone, and most of the rest sitting down. Considering his condition, it's impressive to see him acting at all, but he actually delivers a pretty solid characterization. Took a hell of a lot of guts, because the man must have been in some serious pain.