Review of Blow Out (1981) by Frank J — 02 Jun 2012

While in post-production on a low-budget exploitation film, Philadelphia sound effects technician Jack Terry (John Travolta) is told by his director that he needs more realistic sounding wind. After leaving the studio to record potential sound effects at a local park, he sees a car going off the road and plunge into a nearby lake. Jack dives into the water to help, discovering a dead man and a young woman, still alive, trapped inside the submerged car. He pulls her to safety and accompanies her to a local hospital. Jack learns that the driver of the car was the governor (and a presidential hopeful); the girl was a prostitute named Sally Bedina (Nancy Allen). Associates of the governor attempt to whitewash the incident by concealing that Sally was in the car, and they convince Jack to smuggle Sally out of the hospital with him. Jack listens to the audio tape he recorded of the accident, wherein he distinctly hears a gunshot just before the blow out that caused the accident. He sees a television report that, seemingly by coincidence, Manny Karp (Dennis Franz) was also in the park that night and filmed the accident with a motion picture camera. When Karp sells stills from his film to a local tabloid, Jack splices them together into a crude movie and syncs them with the audio he recorded, becoming even more suspicious that the accident was actually an assassination...

This is a classic Brian De Palma thriller and amongst his best. I rank "Dressed To Kill" and "Body Double" very high as well and there are similarities between these movies. The story is simple, but yet complex due to all the different layers. John Travolta does a great job as Jack. He is young, raw and intense in his performance. Great support from Allen, Lithgow and Franz. In "Blow Out" we get to see several of De Palmas trademark techniques: split-screen, the split diopter lens, and the elaborate tracking shot. Love those. Just the scene when Jack runs around in his studio with the camera panning in a circle is excellent. And I do love the ending.