Review of Blow Out (1981) by Peter D — 30 Jul 2011
De Palma shows near-mastery of cinematic tactics such as tricking the audience with his camera and his pitch-perfect pacing. The best example of this is when the main girl is seemingly killed and the camera starts moving upward from the murder site, to the main part of the construction site on the upper level where the main girl is just turning the corner.
Another is when Travolta's character finds out that all his tapes have been erased and the camera swirls around the room making us feel as if we are one of the spinning reels in the room. Onto the acting.
Travolta is very convincing as sound man and hero Jack Terry as he investigates a murder and falls in love with a con woman, he has all the right tenderness in his eyes without making it overly sentimental.
Nancy Allen is pretty bad as the heroine Sally ,but luckily the film is so good overall that it makes up for that. John Lithgow playing the killer is excellent as always and plays the killer as psychotic , yet easily able to blend in with the crowd.
The ending running scene near the end is ingenious and it manages to blend silliness with sincere frantic pulse pounding suspense. The ending is something that I believe can only be called beautifully tragic and it ends the film on a high note.
There are many hitchockian elements in this film such as themes of obsession on the part of the males and the awesome birdâ(TM)s eye view tracking shots. Overall I thought this was a very clever thriller from De Palma and it is one worth seeing again and again.
This review of Blow Out (1981) was written by Peter D on 30 Jul 2011.
Blow Out has generally received very positive reviews.
Was this review helpful?
