Go (***) - In Doug Liman’s Swingers, there’s a hilarious moment when characters sit around a table discussing movies. One character keeps mentioning Quentin Tarantino prompting another to say that “Tarantino steals everything from Martin Scorsese” prompting another to say “what’s the big deal? Everybody steals from everybody anyway”. All of this goes on as the camera circles the table like the opening to Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs and then followed by the exact same opening slow-walking introduction of the same film. It was brilliant. Now comes Go, which for all intents and purposes should be called Pulp Fiction 2 because it has all the trademarks of that film - a jumping timeline, pop culture discussions in and out of coffee shops, the disposal of a body, a wacky drug dealer, graphic sex talk, spontaneous violence, and wicked dark humor. A lesser film would have just tried to be a copy and nothing more, but Go is much better than that. It’s assured and confident and a lot of fun.This is very close to a 3 ½ star rating and certainly one of the best in an early weak year. (It took until April 9, 1999 for me to even have a potential Top 10 list - how sad is that?). But back to Go, which is a collection of three different tales all taking place on the same night. The first story is cool without blowing our minds. I loved the idea of the amateur drug dealer selling aspirin to idiot stoners and convincing them it’s premium stuff. The scenes with the major drug dealer stick out during this segment which builds to a shocking conclusion. We are then thrust back to begin the second story which is my personal favorite for delivering the most laughs and the most suspense. Then the third story kicks into gear with the film’s biggest surprise plot twist that director Doug Liman handles with such skill that you don’t see it coming until he lets the proverbial cat of the bag. There’s another plot twist during a dinner encounter which probably remains the funniest scene in the film.Everything leads up to a less-than-stellar conclusion that probably robs the film of the 3 ½ stars it deserves. But up until that conclusion - it’s tons of fun.
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