Review of Blow Out (1981) by Blackity B — 05 Apr 2009

De Palma?s ?Blow Out? derives a lot of its inspiration from Antonioni?s ?Blow Up?, although the former uses the themes of the latter and weaves them in a conventional Hollywood narrative, which, to be honest, I appreciated more because it arrived to a more concrete and satisfying point.

The twist on voyeurism this movie makes is instead of spying on people with his camera, John Travolta?s character listens in on their conversations without them knowing it. It is a powerful intrusion of privacy, but it also serves as the means by which the plot evolves when he captures the assassination of the governor on his sound-recording machine.

The montage where he amplifies and plays back and forth the recording of the car crashing parallels the one in ?Blow Up?, but the way in which it diverges is that we not only find the killer but are let it on the entire web of crime. By the end we have a clear villain and an objective the hero has the pursue - to rescue the girl. The relationship between the damsel in distress and the hero has also evolved - at first he was only interested in her as a tool to help him solve the crime, but by the end it was clear he had developed feelings for her.

What surprised me and I really found great though was the ending. Travolta?s character kills the serial killer, but he fails to save the girl who dies in his arms beneath a sky of fireworks, which could have been cheesy but I thought was visually a very touching moment. The final scene where he dubs in her real screams for the Psycho-like movie he is working on was quite grim, and reminded me a lot of the nightmarishly ironic endings of the episodes in ?Tales from the Crypt?.

Overall a solid film.