Blow Out

Rating:
Summary: ONE OF DE PALMA'S FINEST
Review: 'Blow Out' is one of my favourite De Palma films, right after 'Dressed To Kill'. John travolta and Nancy Allen are perfect. I adore these two actors and there's something alluring about these two characters they play. De Palma's use of direction he takes the film is superb and the musical score is astounding. A must see for DePalma fans.
By Justine Ryan

Rating:
Summary: Peeping Tom, Hitchcock, & Blow-Up meet in De Palma's Head
Review: After the unfairly bashed & hilariously satirical "Mission to Mars" (a satire almost everyone who saw the film seemed to miss) and the incredible virtuosity of "Snake Eyes" I will never underrate De Palma again as long as I live. The guy's a cinematic genius who hasn't lost his powers, just an understanding audience. And yet his peak years remain between "Phantom of the Paradise" & "Scarface." And the peak of that peak period is "Blow Out," De Palma's most fully realized & poetically resonating elaboration of his favorite theme: the glossed-over & willfully ignored post-Orwellian horrors of modern America & the hypocrisies & power struggles & conspiracies that constantly churn its engine; the immense tragedy of this for its innocent victims & romantic heroes. In "Snake Eyes" you had Cage & Gugino; the updated versions of Travolta & Allen in "Blow Out."

"Blow-Out" keeps you fascinated & riveted through its thriller elements while implying numerous things on the way until the last 6 or 7 minutes and then bursts out on multiple levels of metaphor with one of the greatest, most poetic endings in cinematic history which brings everything full-circle from the beginning and ties all the loose ends up in one magnificent fell swoop. The many levels and essences of corruption in American society, the constant rape of the innocent and naive by the cynical and powerful, the exploitation constantly going on represented by the cheap film company Travolta works for using a real scream of a girl about to die to finally get it right, etc., not to mention the ever-relevant post-Chappaquidick-at-the-time, post-Clinton-Lewinsky-Condit-now comments on political corruption, political conspiracies and cover-ups, the Antonioni-Blow-Up-like foray into the nature of reality and experience and cinematic illusion itself, all of this comes together in the final two scenes with a cathartic, understated bang! And, of course, the key to all this is John Travolta's amazing, subtle performance, maybe his best ever, and Nancy Allen's equally effective one as the ultimate poster-girl for youth, vigor and innocence, confused, unwittingly corrupted by the dark side of America, always two steps away from being saved and two steps away from being too far gone. John Lithgow also must be mentioned, since he plays such amazingly realistic villians, so much like a regular guy, almost everyone's suburban neighbor, and yet because of this very fact so evil it's positively creepy! Also, Dennis Franz of NYPD Blue makes a memorable appearance as a low-rent sleaze-bag manipulator whose very weaknesses as an aspiring sleazebag make him harder to hate, making you understand why Allen would trust him! Excellent turn by Frantz. De Palma's films of this period also use an intentional, slightly artifical style of acting, not quite 'over-the-top' but just twisted enough to suggest a level of self-parody. In "Blow Out," Travolta's character is the only one played mostly straight, with everyone else seeming almost surreal, hallucinations of themselves.

The DVD has an perfectly matted, not-pristine-but-relatively-decent-looking-to-my-eyes (although some DVD review places have complained about the color separation, I only noticed a slight swarming of black backgrounds during the night-scenes, and they still gave the transfer a C grade, not an F like the Scarface DVD) wide-screen transfer and the super-cool original trailer but not much more if 'extras' like a commentary are what you're looking for. It also has one of the cheesiest looking Main-Menu screens ever designed, but fortunately this is not reflective of the fair quality of the transfer itself offered in the DVD, just the result of some page-designer's nightmare. Oh yeah, the DVD also has a 'standard' full-screen version, on the other side, in case you're one of those geniuses who like watching your movies with only half the original motion picture on the screen, thinking you're getting more bang for your buck because your entire TV screen is filled! The studios have not forsaken your bizarrely logical preferences!

Rating:
Summary: not-so-well-known classic
Review: Arguably one of DePalma's best films, but definitely, and more importantly, one of Travolta's best. In my always humble opinion, this is on par with Travolta's performances in Pulp Fiction and Saturday Night Fever (both of which earned him Oscar nominations).

Some will say I exaggerate, if only because this flick doesn't have the cult following that SNF and PF have established, but Travolta nails the gradually building paranoia and desperation of the character without taking it over the top (something he's sadly mastered in his many not-so-great performances). He also delivers the character's affection for the Nancy Allen character perfectly. His anguish in the final frames of the movie is almost heartbreaking.

However, even if you're not a Travolta fan (and I'm not entirely sure that's possible, even when he stinks), Blow Out is a great suspense/thriller. Definitely one of DePalma's best of the genre and generally much better than most of the insultingly bad big-budget junk that comes out of Hollywood these days.

Rating:
Summary: John Travolta,Nancy Allen Thriller Delivers
Review: At first, you don't really know what to make of Brian DePalma's critically acclaimed 1981 political thriller. Sure, at times DePalma's "showy" camera angles make it seem as if he is trying too hard to be avante-garde. Yet, the staggeringly amazing performances by John Travolta as a sound technichian that inadvertantly tapes a presidential candidate's murder and Nancy Allen as the woman who is with him at the time of his death, alone is worth the investment of time and interest. Allen shows remarkable depth in her role as Sally and pulls off her New York accent convincingly. John Travolta, too, gives an amazing performance -- one in which you almost feel the terror and frustration that Jack must be feeling. All in all, Travolta and Allen transend their stardom to the point that you forget you are actually watching actors play a part. Furthermore, there are strong showings from the supporting cast: John Lithgow, eerily evil as the main protagonist and Dennis Franz, convincingly sleazy as Sally's accomplice, (both playing against type characters) are also enjoyable and solid.

DePalma directed Travolta and Allen in Carrie, where they played the telekinetic teen's primary tormentors -- clearly, this is a threesome that delivers wonderful results. Interestingly enough, Quentin Tarantino cites Blow Out as one his main cinematic inspirations.

The acting coupled with the exquisite plot makes Blow Out a must see.

Rating:
Summary: John Travolta,Nancy Allen Thriller Delivers
Review: At first, you don't really know what to make of Brian DePalma's critically acclaimed 1981 political thriller. Sure, at times DePalma's "showy" camera angles make it seem as if he is trying too hard to be avante-garde. Yet, the staggeringly amazing performances by John Travolta as a sound technichian that inadvertantly tapes a presidential candidate's murder and Nancy Allen as the woman who is with him at the time of his death, alone is worth the investment of time and interest. Allen shows remarkable depth in her role as Sally and pulls off her New York accent convincingly. John Travolta, too, gives an amazing performance -- one in which you almost feel the terror and frustration that Jack must be feeling. All in all, Travolta and Allen transend their stardom to the point that you forget you are actually watching actors play a part. Furthermore, there are strong showings from the supporting cast: John Lithgow, eerily evil as the main protagonist and Dennis Franz, convincingly sleazy as Sally's accomplice, (both playing against type characters) are also enjoyable and solid.

DePalma directed Travolta and Allen in Carrie, where they played the telekinetic teen's primary tormentors -- clearly, this is a threesome that delivers wonderful results. Interestingly enough, Quentin Tarantino cites Blow Out as one his main cinematic inspirations.

The acting coupled with the exquisite plot makes Blow Out a must see.

Rating:
Summary: Thrilling
Review: BLOW OUT director Brian DePalma could probably make an exciting film in his sleep, not that he was dozing here. The best DePalma film I have seen, BLOW OUT includes cinematic poetry in addition to the director's usual suspense and action elements. Another big plus: John Lithgow, whose antagonist role proves as wicked as any I have seen. The director's affection for female nudity, even when the subject is actress-wife Nancy Allen, perplexes me. But all the great artists confound even their fans. In 1981 I saw BLOW OUT three or four times at the movies. See BLOW OUT, a work of thrilling art from the artist Brian DePalma, today.

Rating:
Summary: Arguably DePalma's 2nd Best Film (next to The Untouchables)
Review: Blow Out is a wonderful "Hitchcockian thriller" which centers on John Travolta as a C-Grade Horror Film Sound Designer who records the sound of an accident, which he is convinced was actually murder. Travolta gives a nicely understated performance, and his acting is contrasted by John Lithgow's wonderfully broad portrayal of an overly-zealous assassin. Get it for the two lead male performances, the nicely paced suspense, and for DePalma's superb film technique and excellent exploration of the power of SOUND + image.

Rating:
Summary: THE PERFECT SCREAM
Review: BLOW OUT is probably my favorite Brian DePalma AND John Travolta movie. Often criticized for his derivativeness from masters such as Hitchcock or others, DePalma found a niche in this film that he never really recaptured (with the exception of THE UNTOUCHABLES, but it's a different kind of film). DePalma's trademark kinetic cinematography and plot twists are evident, but they don't seem as forced or contrived as in some of his other films. I've never seen BLOWUP, and sometimes I hate it when people tend to compare similar films. Let them stand on their own for whatever their merits might be. This is a stunningly performed and hypnotic thriller, buoyed by the performances of both Travolta and Nancy Allen, who first appeared together in De Palma's brilliant CARRIE. John Lithgow is very effective in his role as the killer after our stars. Dennis Franz gives another solid performance as the sleazeball who sets Allen up with the presidential hopeful. Some of the scenes where they're trying to get a good screamer for a horror movie Travolta is working on are priceless.
BLOW OUT culminates in a suspenseful finale at a Liberty Bell celebration in Philadelphia and his decision to slow mo the Travolta rush to save Allen is mesmerizing and agonizing at the same time. Flashy thought it may be, I love the scene where Travolta and Allen are in the foreground of the fireworks.
DePalma was at his peak here and I have enjoyed this movie four times since its release.

Rating:
Summary: Average thriller
Review: Brian de Palma mixes in this film different elements that he has already used in other films. The voyeur, both sound and images. The sound technicien only tries to get noises for his job. He gets an avccident and crime at the same time. The photographer is a blackmailer using a girl who has some needs in money, to trick various politicians, in this case the Governor of Pennsylvania who is a very strong Preidential candidate. But a killer is on his way who manages to get rid of the governor. Then the sound technician manages to get the film of the photographer and to rebuild the whole accident. But the killer catches upon them and tries to get every thing his way. So it becomes a thriller after all. But the film is altogether rather weak because many things are unrealistic : the streets are empty. The main station is empty. The subway is empty. The celebrations of some Liberty Day are rather small and so on. So we get a skeleton more than a real monster. But there is somewhere some horrible element about human nature : man's capability to accept anything, to live with any crime and any horror, by just forgetting about it and moving on. This film is perfectly pessimistic about human nature. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, Paris Universities II and IX.

Rating:
Summary: One of DePalma's best
Review: Brian De Palma rips off Michaelangelo Antonioni's Blow Up and Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation and comes up with a decent thriller about a film sound engineer (John Travolta) who records an automobile accident and becomes involved in a coverup when it turns out the driver was about to be elected President of the United States.

Jack Terry (Travolta) is on a city bridge recording ambient sounds for his latest schlock film's soundtrack when he hears a blow out and sees a car go off the road and into the lake. He dives in to find a woman, Sally (Nancy Allen), still alive in the car. He rescues her and takes her to the emergency room, where he finds out that the candidate was driving the car--and Sally isn't his wife. The police proceed to get Jack to "forget" what he saw.

Later, going over his tapes, Jack becomes convinced he heard a sound *before* the blow out--a gunshot. If there was a gun, then this was no accident.

After Carrie and Dressed to Kill, Blow Out continues Brian DePalma's reign as king of the Hitchcockian thriller/rip-off. Although style often triumphs over substance, often the style comments on the substance. His trademark split-screen (which specifically influenced Run Lola Run's Tom Tykwer) is used effectively to present two simultaneous sets of action that would otherwise be unknown. DePalma has also used this method of technical storytelling in Phantom of the Paradise and Sisters.

The acting is solid, as well, with Nancy Allen (then Mrs. DePalma) as the prototypical love interest (or is she?) and an early John Lithgow playing Burke, a homicidal maniac hired to take out Sally (as he takes out seemingly every woman who resembles her). DePalma would use Lithgow to greater effect in Raising Cain, and here he shows the promise of that later film.

SPOILER BEGINS

I must comment on the ending and say that it is one of the most heartbreaking I have seen, and yet works entirely in the context of the film. It really could not have ended any other way, and I laud DePalma for avoiding the typical Hollywood happy ending.

SPOILER ENDS
(and so does this review)