Plot
Go! tells the story of the events after a drug deal, told from three different points of view.

Release Year: 1999

Rating: 7.3/10 (43,540 voted)

Critic's Score: 72/100

Director: Doug Liman

Stars: Sarah Polley, Jay Mohr, Scott Wolf

Storyline
Told from three perspectives, a story of a bunch of young Californians trying to get some cash, do and deal some drugs, score money and sex in Las Vegas, and generally experience the rush of life.

Cast:
Katie Holmes - Claire Montgomery
Sarah Polley - Ronna Martin
Suzanne Krull - Stringy Haired Woman
Desmond Askew - Simon Baines
Nathan Bexton - Mannie
Robert Peters - Switterman
Scott Wolf - Adam
Jay Mohr - Zack
Timothy Olyphant - Todd Gaines
Jodi Bianca Wise - Ballerina Girl
William Fichtner - Burke
Rita Bland - Dancing Register Woman
Tony Denman - Track Suit Guy
Scott Hass - Raver Dude
Natasha Melnick - Anorexic Girl

Taglines: A weekend wasted is never a wasted weekend.

Release Date: 9 April 1999

Filming Locations: L.A.P.D. Hollywood Station - 1358 Wilcox Avenue, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA

Box Office Details

Budget: $6,500,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend: $4,706,795 (USA) (11 April 1999) (1563 Screens)

Gross: $16,842,303 (USA) (1 August 1999)

Runtime: 102 min

Trivia:
Sex is repeatedly a bad omen. Ronna and Todd talk about sex as a metaphor for betrayal in all of their scenes ("I don't give my best friends head"); Simon is having sex when the hotel room catches fire; Zack and Adam talk about how they both cheated on each other with Jimmy and getting their revenge on him before accidentally running Ronna over; Todd and Claire on the stairs before they meet the strip-club bouncers.

Goofs:
Revealing mistakes: When Vince Sr. and Vince Jr. are chasing Simon, Singh, Tiny, and Marcus in the parkade, Vince Sr. leans on a concrete post that wobbles.

Quotes:
Simon Baines: He's a good guy.
Marcus: Oh, he's the good drug dealer.

A wonderful wild ride; sometimes too clever, sometimes not enough

Rating:

"Go" reads like a very very good sophomore offering by a very very good up-and-coming director. You can almost see a bright future for everyone involved in the film, from the director (Doug Liman) to the screenwriter (John August) to all of the young actors. The script is clearly the winner, with witty dialogue and a convoluted plotline (or plotlines, depending on how you view it) centered around a dozen or so GenX-er Los Angelenos on Christmas Eve. The film slickly moves you from one plotline to the next, as you follow one minor disaster leading to other minor disasters.

The film being a "sophomore offering," of course, has some drawbacks. Yes, it is tangentially derivative of "Pulp Fiction." And yes, it does scrounge a bit from this teen flick and that. In some cases, certain plotlines wrap up too neatly, and in other cases the plotlines don't converge nearly as neatly enough. But what the film may lack in originality it certainly makes up for with style and quirks.

The real discovery in all this is the cast. Sarah Polly stands out (listen to her mild Canadian accent slip through once in a while) as the world-weary checkout gal who's first and only foray into drug-dealing unleashes a legion of trouble for her. Desmond Askew (wonderfully punny name) is this Pulp Fiction's Tim Roth, glib and cocky as his well-ordered world whirls and crumbles around him in a neatly choreographed disaster. As the sinister drug supplier, Timothy Olyphant is particularly menacing, exuding equal amounts of danger and innocence, sexiness and insecurity. The characters in "Go" never become cardboard parodies of themselves, and they never dissolve into charicatures of themselves for the sake of plot or atmosphere.

So watch the film, soak in the plot, atmosphere, and the characters. At the risk of sounding glib myself, by all means "Go."

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