Richard Sarafian's seminal road movie from 1971 - Barry Newman plays Kowalski who drives cars between Denver and San Fransisco - having just got back he decides to drive the next car and for a bet will do it in two days - fueled by a head full of speed and only one goal in mind he roars off in a supercharged Dodge Challenger and nothing is going to stop him.
He soon has the whole Colarado Highway Patrol after him but is a very experienced driver and soon makes fools of them - the chase continues over the state into Nevada and his explots get picked up by a local radio DJ SuperSoul(Cleavon Little) who relays his adventures to an increasingly supportive audience of bikers and the whole counter-culture movement of the time......as Kowalski is on his own and says very little even when in conversation this acts as a useful narrative device and gives meaning to what could on the surface be another car chase movie. There are loads of Smokey and the Bandit type thrills but its the enigmatic reason for it and the dream like quality the road takes on that gives the film such a haunting element - in brief flashbacks we learn that Kowalski was a Vietnam vet,then a Cop and finally a rally driver whose girlfriend drowned in a surfing accident but none of this explains why he doing what he is doing - he seems totally cut off from everything.....he meets a grizzeled prospector in the desert who helps him and they breifly hook up with a very odd Christian sect and he is helped by a biker whose naked girlfriend offers herself but he is so focused he dis-regards all this. Meanwhile Super-Souls commentry raises his profile to a free-wheeling folk hero - a one man stand against authority - even this fails to impress him as the cops begin to close in.
One of the films strenths is that the communication between Kowalski and Super-Soul is all one way - the DJ can only guess as to what and why he is doing further isolating him - the whole thing takes on an existentialist quality where motivation is is lost in the huge open spaces of the American West - fantastic photography by John Alonso(who also shot Chinatown) who captures the mythic quality of the vast landscape and mans insignifcance in it.
And the ending.........what can I say.....it has an inevatability about it but still stuns.....and of course the whole thing provides the basis for the Primal Scream track - This radio station is named Kowalski....... A masterpiece.
I agree, it is a masterpiece. It may have been made in the spirit of 'Easy Rider' that was two years before it but I think 'Vanishing Point' is the better film. It may have parts that date it slightly but where 'Easy Rider' was a cocaine and acid influenced movie 'Vanishing POint' is very much a speed movie;the first half is very exciting and like a adrenalin rush whilst the second half is more like a come-down, very introspective and bleak. I always wondered what it would be like if you could see the movie with the awesome Primal Scream album played as the films soundtrack.
Watch out, there is a plot spoiler at the bottom of this post, please skip the whole thing if you have not seen this film.
Vanishing point is an awesome movie, the chase sequences show how many modern chases have lost the plot, in this film they are believable, the car does not get destroyed after every jump then reappear magically fixed.
Bit of interesting triva is that GM supplied the cars (4 of them) not knowing just what the movie was about, not wanting to be connected to drug-driven high speed chase movie, all 4 cars are believed to have been destroyed.
SPOILER
The car you see hitting the bulldozer at the end of the film is not actually "the" car (as mentioned there were 4) Kowalski was driving during the film, infact it is not even a challenger but one of the cheaper coupe from the GM brand (slow mo it, look at the back). Which makes the distruction of these cars by GM afterwards even more pointless!
