Detour (1998)

Danny is brought into a scheme by his trusted friend and confidant, Ziggy Rotella to steal 1.2 million dollars from a warehouse safe owned by tough mob boss, Gianni Grasso. But the inside job turns out to be a trap set-up by Ziggy's informant, Mo Lasker. The safe has already been cleaned out and worse. Grasso and his thugs show up to catch the apparent thieves. Guns are pulled, bullets fly and Danny and the gang narrowly escape a brutal shoot out. Now on the run from Grasso and his cruel son, Rosy, Danny decides to go his own way and takes refuge in his hometown of Ellenso, a place he ran away from ten years ago. This movie rocks and if you rent it or buy it, I promise you won't be disappointed!!!

I thought this was just going to be a macho movie full of shooting, explosions, cursing and loud music. But when Danny returned to his hometown for what waitress Inga said was the first time in 10 years, the movie went in a whole new direction (temporarily). The music became more mellow though not necessarily my taste. The pace of the movie became more comfortable and I found myself starting to enjoy it.After a big robbery in New York City, with the usual action,it is not clear just who has the money. Mo tells Ziggy on the phone that Danny must have it, though Mo is the one having sex on a big pile of cash. Ziggy comes to Danny's town, and he is soon followed by the boys that Grasso sent. Eventually, Grasso has to come himself, in a great big limo.Danny, meanwhile, has to deal with the death of his mother (although he didn't get the message, his return came, coincidentally, just in time for the funeral). He is left to run the family farm and the family's dairy business (he doesn't want to do either). His former girlfriend Britt has married Danny's stepbrother Burl, who is the bumbling sheriff.There is quite a bit of comedy in the second half. Ziggy and his friend are staying with Danny, but they must wake up bright and early after Mel, whose only way of making a living is running Danny's farm, is promised that Ziggy will help out. Burl also must deal with an emergency after he has decided to turn off his police radio, so the dispatcher uses a bullhorn (not realizing Burl is standing right in front of him). Mo was also funny with his date. And Grasso and his boys seem to have little conscience when they kill people. A lot of the comedy is associated with the emergency Burl had to respond to.I liked the scenes with Danny and Britt the best, as well as scenes where Danny spent time with his niece Daniella. There was also a parade near the end where Inga and Daniella were beauty queens, and that was fun too (in this type of movie, though, do you think a parade will go smoothly?). And while I didn't like most of the music, I think the music will be a highlight for a lot of people.

A bunch of cool gangsters are robbing a suitcase full of money from an Italian mafia bosses' headquarter and leaving for the country side for another big coup, but the Italian mob is already hunting them for bloody revenge... that's the whole plot of this hardcore action b-movie flick by Joey Travolta, the little brother of big John.Travolta wants to direct like his big idols - Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, Martin Scorsese, Brian de Palma, Walter Hill, Sam Peckinpah, John Woo and the Die Hard movies... but Travolta is none of the above but only a b-movie director which you can see in every single second of this film! The story is to flat and often-told, the dialogues are bland and not witty at all, and the actors seem partially comatose... nobody here really seemed to be too enthusiastic about his job.Although Joey Travolta collected a lot of second-league stars of hard-boiled undergound and action movie fame around like Jeff Fahey, Michael Madsen, James Russo and Gary Busey, even those rather good actors can't add any quality to this trash. Even the shootings and showdowns are rather boring, and too many slow motions rather serve to say good night to the viewer instead of taking his breath away. This film is alright for two hours of mindless action fun after midnight, but I recommend to choose the originals instead!

Being a giant fan of Fahey and Busey I found this impossible not to miss.The film itself has many bad qualities. The sound is all over the place. The levels peak mid shot and the mics pick up annoying chunks so sound, like Fahey leather jacket making that leather-jacket-sort-of-noise. The amount of footaged re-used is amazing. I can think of a least 5 glaring examples.However, then there is the cast and plot. Fahey (who supports the film perfectly) is great is a role that he can play in his sleep. Busey limited usage shows and his pyjamas are exceptional. Russo really only shines in the action sequences. Madsen give a good as he wants (which I don't believe is very much) as the charater has very little to do and didn't require someone like Madsen to play it.If you can manage to endure the technical problems this turns out to be a fairly enjoyable waste of time.