Go
In the middle of the teen comedy boom of the late ’90s, somebody had to deliver the genre’s “Pulp Fiction.” John August’s screenplay for “Go” doesn’t twist the three act structure like Tarantino did, but what he does do is build three different stories off of one scene, and follow them where they lead. Doug Liman’s direction keeps the energy lively, and the dark comedy bouncing in entertaining ways.
The film begins with Katie Holmes, and she’s talking about what she likes about Christmas to someone at a diner. What does she like? The surprise. Because you don’t really know what you’re going to get. Next we see her character, Claire, at her day job at a grocery store with her friend, Ronna (Sarah Polley), who’s been working for 14 hours straight. She’s having to make enough money to pay her rent or else she’s going to be evicted. A coworker, Simon (Desmond Askew), wants Ronna to cover his shift because he’s going to Vegas with friends, which she agrees to. While on Simon’s shift, she gets approached about getting some ecstacy from Adam (Scott Wolf) and Zack (Jay Mohr), who were expecting Simon. From there, the night goes into some really weird territory for everyone involved.
“Go” was Liman’s follow-up to “Swingers,” and while that one was about male culture in Los Angeles for the late 20s-early 30s set, “Go” skews a bit younger. Claire and Ronna are in their teens, and everyone else is in their early 20s, it seems, and they just want to party and have fun. They aren’t drawn naturally into crime, but circumstances dictate it. The music is by BT, and it has a force that keeps the action moving throughout the film’s wild 102 minutes. Character building is subtle and done is doses, rather than major arcs, and as much a result of the actors playing them than the characters themselves. That doesn’t mean we don’t get great performances, though- Polley’s maturity, which was so important to her work in “The Sweet Hereafter,” morphs into sharp confidence here as Ronna, a young woman who mostly knows how to get out of a jam, but still finds herself the victim of circumstance. The next best performance is by Timothy Olyphant as Todd, the drug dealer Ronna gets her ecstacy from- he’s always got a devil-may-care confidence that is perfect for Todd, and he can turn on the villain in him when needed, and a sillier side when appropriate. Overall, the cast is strong and does what’s needed for their characters, but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention William Fichtner as a cop working Adam and Zack over more than just drugs, in probably the film’s funniest scene.
The film finds itself moving back to that scene in the breakroom between Claire, Ronna and Simon each time to begin each story. In ranking them, the middle one- a crazy tale of sex and strippers and stolen cars in Vegas for Simon and his friends- is by far the most entertaining one because it gets so ridiculous. Ronna and Claire and the ecstacy is fun, and Adam and Zack and their struggles around Fichtner has their moments, but the Vegas adventure is like a condensed version of “The Hangover,” and it’s wild fun, and perfect for the dark storytelling Liman and August are deploying here. “Go” is an entertaining comedy of criminal activity, and crazy character decisions by characters who should probably know better.
