7Roulette - VANISHING POINT

Though well shot in places, Vanishing Point severely lacks in story structure & character development with each scene more superficial & contrived than its last. You're left with a vague sense of its era rather than being able to observe it as a relic that it most certainly aimed at attempting to be. A film about a personally flaccid & smarmy ex-everything stereotypical whose scenes of righteousness are belabored. A boring addition to the anti-hero epic where the only thing going for it are the breathtaking scenic shots that make me angry to be a New Englander in the middle of winter. What more can you say about a film about some asshole & a car? C-

- Jess

The reason Easy Rider was such an "important film" was that it acted as a smooth segue from the poor & mediocre biker/drag race subgenre into a more artistic abstraction; paving the desert roads for films like Vanishing Point - a picture far less preachy than Easy Rider, & far less plot-heavy than films like Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry & White Lighting. These qualities make it superior in some ways - specifically & primarily in that abstraction; what little exposition there is is told with images, not spoken words, resulting in the hottest car porn I've ever seen, & starring the sexiest porn star there is: the Dodge Challenger. & like any porno, it leads you down this road for so long & so often, any time some 'plot crap' rears its head, you start to tune out. Skimming the milk a bit would have resulted in full-blown eye candy from start to finish. And to reflect the nature of the genre, it almost makes it... B+

- Paul