Gone in 60 Seconds (2000)

Randall "Memphis" Raines retired from the car stealing business a long time ago, but his brother Kip hasn't. When Kip promises to steal 50 cars for a gang he fails to steal the required amount of cars in time. The gang are far from pleased as their customer, a Columbian drug lord, will not be happy and his boat leaves in three days time and he expects it to be full of cars.

The gang threaten to kill Kip unless Memphis comes out of retirement and fulfils the order. He has no other choice but to comply so he reassembles his trusty booster team and sets to work. With time running out before the ship sails he decides that all of the cars will be stolen in one night, starting with a Aston Martin DB7. However, when Kip failed with his initial raid the police got wind of the plan and they are keeping a close eye on Memphis and his friends.

The picture is bright and colourful with plenty of rich colour tones with an above average bit-rate throughout the film. The day and night time pictures hold up well with no signs of artifacting, picture imperfections or outlining. With this film being a recent big budget affair I'd be expecting nothing but a perfect picture, and that is just what we have here.

The sound is reasonable with the occasional but effective use of the surround channels by the speeding cars and soundtrack. The dialogue is crisp and clear in the centre channel and it was audible at all times during the film, even during the hectic finale. However, for what is a high octane action film the sound department was somewhat lacking. The only saving grace is the cracking soundtrack which definitely requires a closer inspection of the soundtrack CD.

The menus are a boring silent and static affair, but the extras are reasonable enough. Although there are plenty of featurettes most are too short and uninteresting. They have this nasty look of being split up to pad out the disc. The usual trailer and cast and crew filmography are included as well as a music video. It's just a pity that, unlike his previous films on DVD, Jerry Bruckheimer couldn't manage a director's commentary. Perhaps he was too embarrassed by the results.

The unfortunate thing with this film is that absolutely nothing happens until the 80th minute of the film. Up until then all that happens is that a bunch of crooks steal various cars with hardly any resistance from either the owners or police. Even Vinnie Jones is pathetic and he doesn't even mutter a word until the last moments of the film, and then they're pretty awful. All he seems to do during the film is scowl and sneer. How he got rave reviews from the British press for this I'll never understand.