Cage, Jolie worthless in `60 Seconds’

In theaters

GONE IN 60 SECONDS. Directed by Dominic Sena. Written by Scott Rosenberg. Running time: 119 minutes. Rated PG-13.

Apparently, it takes just 60 seconds to lose your credibility, to damage your career, to become a laughingstock, to disappoint your audience, and to forever alter the way the world views you, your work and your choices.

Such is the case for the Academy Award-winning cast of Dominic Sena’s “Gone in 60 Seconds,” a film about car chases and caricatures that stars Nicolas Cage and Angelina Jolie, two actors who should have known better than to turn their Academy Awards into big pots of worthless fool’s gold.

This is Jolie’s first movie since scoring a Best Supporting Actress award at this year’s Academy Awards, and she’s just bad enough to make it seem as if her winning turn in “Girl, Interrupted” was a fluke.

She’s in good company. After Cage’s Best Actor win for “Leaving Las Vegas,” his career has been so entirely unremarkable in his rampant pursuit of money that whatever talent he may have exhibited in strong, smaller films such as “Vegas,” “Moonstruck” and “Raising Arizona” has since been sucked into an artistic vacuum.

Jolie does fare better than Cage in “Gone,” but that’s only because she wasn’t asked to speak as much of the film’s pseudotough and often hilarious dialogue, which is as painful to listen to as any live performance by Mariah Carey. Instead, Jolie was apparently hauled in to showcase her enormous lips, which are so startlingly full and menacing in their plumped up bravada, they look as if they could dismantle a tractor.

Based on H.B. Halicki’s 1974 drive-in movie of the same name, “Gone in 60 Seconds” features Cage as Memphis Raines, a retired car thief who jumps back into a life of crime after his younger brother, Kip (Giovanni Ribisi), fails to deliver 50 high-priced stolen cars to the mobster Raymond Calitri (Christopher Eccleston).

Now, with Kip’s life on the line, it’s up to Memphis and his tag team of STP-sniffing troglodytes (Robert Duvall, Jolie, Will Patton, Chi McBride and Vinnie Jones) to evade the police and get those cars to Calitri in four days flat.

With the exception of the film’s car chases, which are well done, everything here looks as if it took 60 seconds to slap together: the plot, the performances, Cage’s toupee, the dialogue.

In fact, not enough can be said about the film’s dialogue, which is so bad, it’s like finding stains on a mattress — you just want to cover it up in embarrassment. Grade: D

On video

PLAY IT TO THE BONE. Written and directed by Ron Shelton. Running time: 125 minutes. Rated R.

Ron Shelton’s new boxing movie, “Play It to the Bone,” should have thrown in the towel long before it ever went into production.

The film isn’t sure what it wants to be — a road movie, a buddy movie or a film about boxing between Cesar Dominguez (Antonio Banderas) and Vince Boudreau (Woody Harrelson), two macho middleweight has-beens who are given another shot at glory after failures that put their professional careers on ice.

Unfortunately, the film isn’t smart enough to pull its three story elements together, which is surprising since Shelton is a pro at writing and directing successful sports movies, including “Bull Durham,” “White Men Can’t Jump” and “Tin Cup.”

He’s lost the match here. “Play It to the Bone” proves every bit as lame as its ultra-lame title. Instead of giving audiences an insider’s view of boxing, something Shelton did for baseball and golf, the director gives them a handful of cliches plucked straight out of the “Rocky” movies. (Guess what, folks? Boxing is corrupt!)

The cast’s likability is part of the film’s problem. By the time the two men finally get into the ring and start pummeling each other (the ending is far too bloody and violent for what’s supposed to be a comedy), we like each of them so equally that there’s no one to root for.

The blood flows, the crowd cheers, their ex-girlfriend, Grace (Lolita Davidovich), makes wisecracks at ringside, but the audience is left in limbo. And that’s a mistake that just KOs this film.

Grade: D+

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Monday and Thursday in the NEWS, Tuesday and Thursday on WLBZ’s “NEWS CENTER 5:30 Today” and “NEWS CENTER Tonight,” and Saturday and Sunday on NEWS CENTER’s statewide “Morning Report.”