Review of Vanishing Point (1971) by Lawrence Y — 07 May 2009
In my humble opinion, this is the greatest existential road movie of them all. It's a paired-down, benzedrine-fueled, burned-out wreck of a film about a delivery driver named Kowalski (Barry Newman) who decides to drive from Salt Lake City to San Francisco as fast as he can.
Pretty soon, he has cops in three states on his tail. It's definitely a film of its era, deeply infused with the pessimistic vibe from the end of the sixties. Kowalski's race across the desert is also richly allegorical: as the film's blind DJ (Cleavon Little) remarks, Kowalski is "the last American hero to whom speed means freedom of the soul".
Above all, I love the mood of the movie: the distant, fragmented snippets we get of Kowalski's past life; the atmosphere of resigned loss; the feeling the film gives of a culture on the edge. Whenever I've gone on road trips around the American West, this is the film that sticks with me.
This review of Vanishing Point (1971) was written by Lawrence Y on 07 May 2009.
Vanishing Point has generally received positive reviews.
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