Arrow Video: Go (1999) - Reviewed

Images courtesy of Arrow Video

Before reinventing himself as a purveyor of everything from the action thriller to science fiction from The Bourne Identity, Mr. and Mrs. Smith and Edge of Tomorrow, American film director Doug Liman started out working in the ensemble dark comedy subgenre with his straight-to-video Getting In followed by his hit 1996 buddy comedy Swingers starring future director Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn.  A film which singlehandedly launched Liman’s career, the stage was set for even bigger black comedy stakes and following the out-of-nowhere breakout success of Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, the conceit of trashy crime fiction told in an episodic nonlinear fashion became trendy and chic. 
 
Enter screenwriter John August who would later pen Titan A.E. and Big Fish alongside several other Tim Burton projects and felt Doug Liman was a perfect fit for his screenplay for Go, a 1990s time capsule of wicked kaleidoscopic energy which is a closer strange bedfellow to something like Trainspotting or Hackers.  While weak with traction at the box office in 1999, in the years since it has gained a cult following as a distinctly 90s neo-noir comedy thriller and stands as an intermediary point between Liman’s comedy work and his foray into the Hollywood action director’s chair.  With Arrow Video who have minted a new 4K restoration and UHD disc release, this is as definitive of a home video release as there’s ever been for this gem of post-MTV 90s flavored crime cinema.
 
Though retold from different angles throughout ala Pulp Fiction while trained on much younger characters closer to the target demographic’s age bracket, Go zeroes in on Ronna (Sarah Polley) a grocery store clerk behind on rent who gets enmeshed in a drug deal gone bad involving her coworker Claire (Katie Holmes), a sleazy dealer Todd (Timothy Olyphant), two paid soap opera actors Adam (Scott Wolf) and Zack (Jay Mohr) working undercover for cop Burke Halverson (William Fichtner) attempting a sting operation and a British party animal named Simon (Desmond Askew) whose lascivious bad boy behavior threatens to ignite an all-out drug war.  As the film jumps freely between these stories and characters, inevitably these interlocking threads will converge in ways both hilarious and shocking.

 
At the time Doug Liman’s next feature was supposed to be Heartbreakers at the behest of his agent and despite Go being a smaller tighter more challenging project the director ultimately chose the film we’re looking at today.  Though spoken of the same breath as Jim Jarmusch’s Mystery Train and later Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, the energy and tone of Go is decidedly faster and more frenzied and in theory closer to Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers in terms of distinctly 1990s multimedia style.  

Scored with pulsating energy by BT and photographed by none other than the director himself in luminous scope 2.35:1 widescreen, Go looks and sounds fabulous with asides that almost burst into pantomime like when a character strung out on pills imagines himself in a musical number with a grocery store clerk.  All of the young actors are good with some unexpected cameos from Breckin Meyer and even Taye Diggs while Katie Holmes and Sarah Polley are mostly fine with Polley having to engage in physical acting including a car stunt that’s scary to watch.  The strongest actors in the whole saga are Timothy Olyphant as the drug dealer and William Fichtner fresh off of Michael Mann’s Heat as an undercover cop but everyone turns over good performances overall.

 
While not a financial disaster by any means, it wasn’t quite the box office hit the studio was hoping for but nevertheless it garnered strong reviews and further cemented Liman as a filmmaking force to be reckoned with in his own right and not just another pale imitation of Tarantino.  Arrow Video, aware of the recent resurgence of 1990s media and memorabilia from VHS tapes to compact discs, have given special attention to Liman’s 1999 cross-cutting crime saga with new as well as archival audio commentaries including with Liman and his editor Stephen Mirrione.  There’s a new video interview with screenwriter John August, actor Desmond Askew as well as archival featurettes and fourteen deleted scenes. 

 
The collectible booklet in the limited edition 4K set includes newly written essays on the film by David Michael Brown and The Movie Sleuth’s very own Michelle Kisner.  A final cherry on top for the special features includes a short film by John August God starring Melissa McCarthy which was made using the leftover short ends on the shoot of Go.  Arrow Video has given lavish attention to another 90s cult favorite and those unfamiliar with it are inclined to indulge in this wild offbeat rollercoaster ride from one of modern cinema’s most exciting and versatile action filmmakers working today.

--Andrew Kotwicki