Vanishing Point (1997) (TV)

Director:

Charles Robert Carner

Writers:

Malcolm Hart (story)
Guillermo Cabrera Infante (earlier screenplay)

Release Date:

7 January 1997 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Adventure | Romance

Plot:

When his wife goes into a troubled labor while he is on the road over 1200 miles away James Kowalski...

Plot Keywords:

Chase | Automobile | Car Accident | Military | Muscle Car

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Viggo Mortensen	...	Jimmy Kowalski
Christine Elise	...	Raphinia Kowalski
Steve Railsback	...	Sergeant Preston
Rodney A. Grant
Peter Murnik	...	Gilmore
James MacDonald		(as James G. MacDonald)
Paul Benjamin
Geno Silva	...	Mike Mas
John Doe	...	Sammy
Peta Wilson	...	Motorcycle girl
Keith David	...	Warren Taft
Jason Priestley	...	The Voice
Debra Sharkey	...	Producer
Ari Barak	...	Dr. Nazrin
Frank Roman	...	Hernando

Runtime:

91 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Certification:

Netherlands:12 | Singapore:PG

Filming Locations:

Tucson, Arizona, USA

Company:

Fox Television Network

Trivia:

A mission (church) shown near the beginning of the movie is "Mission San Xavier del Bac", near Tucson, Arizona.

Goofs:

Factual errors: Several shots show the police scanner in Kowalski's car as he is listening to the police talk about him. The scanner's LED lights are shown blinking. In this mode a police scanner is silent since it is "scanning" frequencies. If the scanner were receiving a police transmission only one LED would be lit steadily.

Movie Connections:

Remake of Vanishing Point (1971)

Utterly forgettable, utterly pointless, utterly insipid, utterly dull

What made the original Vanishing Point a classic was that everyone was free to read their own meaning into it... or read no meaning at all and just watch the Challenger roar through the desert. What motivates Kowalski? Decipher it from his actions and flashbacks, or just ignore the question entirely. The film is still magnificent either way.

But the studio thought this uncertainty made it too esoteric back in 1971, so it was cut and given a limited release in the expectation of a quick death. But far from vanishing, the original Vanishing Point became recognized as one the GREAT road movies of all time.

This remake shows that Hollywood hasn't changed much. They love remaking a classic (hopefully guaranteeing an audience), but they still think that everything needs to be made both very obvious and very very simple. So they get rid of all the classic elements and turn it into a generic chase movie. They give Kowalski a really REALLY simple, obvious reason for his drive, making his flashbacks and encounters purely superfluous. And being superfluous they are populated with trite two dimensional caricatures... boring fluff that could be disposed of without diminishing this movie at all, slight though it is. This is entirely unlike the original which had interesting, unusual people that added to the story and gave context to the nature and character of Kowalski.

And that clunky, mass market mysticism thrown into the remake? ANY film is better off without that!!!

They also decided to make a federal case out of Kowalski's run... literally. It's not enough that state cops will naturally chase people who run from them (as in the original, and assign a symbolic meaning - or not - to that if you wish). In the remake they pound you again and again with a clumsy blunt-object polemic about the government and militias, with the FBI, ATF etc ultimately all ganging up on Kowalski.

The people who spawned this remake obviously read their own meanings into the original... that's the quality it has that makes it great. But instead of opening up any meanings we might find in their new version for us to discover ourselves, they forced on us that single reading of theirs alone. Unfortunately, that one narrow focus vastly shrank the appeal of the remake to something less than a vanishing point. The end result wasn't worth the wasting of either the Charger or the Challenger, let alone the both of them.