Vanishing Point

Barry Newman is "Kowalski", an enigmatic figure who has tried everything in his life from stock car racing to the military, and failed at every one of his endeavors. Working as an auto delivery man, he gets an order to transport a 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T to San Francisco, and makes a bet with a few friends that it can be done in an impossibly short time. After loading up on "ups" and throttling the car westward, he is soon pursued vigorously by the police and embraced by the public as something of a hero. During a time when national speed limits were all controversy, this film provides a compelling argument against them: A fast car in the hands of a capable driver is not dangerous. Even the police, so caught up in their own system, don't realize that they are the only ones causing accidents and endangering the public while blindly trying to keep up with and capture Kowalski.

While the film sounds at first to be a simple action film, it's really much more than that. Kowalksi's past is revealed little by little through flashbacks, making the film something of a character study. Kowalski's trip becomes a road trip of existentialism as he runs across various strange characters: Solitary hippies, gay bandits, a boogie-woogie snake handling Christian cult, and the blind soul station DJ (brilliantly played by Cleavon Little) who is attempting to guide him on his journey from within the car's radio.

Topping it off is a great soundtrack, breathtaking cinematography and direction, and automotive action that has seen no equal. This film manages to be both compelling and exciting. Just watch it already.

10/10

Kowalski transports cars across the western US in 1970. He gets a gig transporting a 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T from Denver to San Francisco and sets out at maximum warp, stopping only for gas and strategy. He commits no crime outside of speeding, and fleeing the cops who are trying to stop him simply because he will not stop. He finds allies along the way, including an old prospector, a DJ named Super Soul, and a hippie who seems to me to be an alternate ending to the life of Peter Fonda's character Wyatt in "Easy Rider". He drives and drives and drives until he meets his destiny in a tiny town on the California-Nevada border at 10:04 AM on some unnamed Sunday.

Why? Is it because of his past; ex-cop, ex-racer, tragically bereaved? Is it because of the truckload of speed he takes at the beginning of the movie (draw your own metaphors between Kowalski's internal use of the noun and external use of the verb)?

Or is it the road, the infinite expanses of the Southwest, the silence, the freedom, the sound of the motor surging, the tires spinning, the wheels gobbling up and sitting out the black asphalt? Who knows? Kowalski seems indifferent as to why he drives, only that he must drive, must evade, must get to where he is going and will not - can not - be stopped.

Do yourself a favor. Rent the original, don't see the '97 made for TV movie (it has some high points, but it's like watching the '99 "Psycho" before seeing the Alfred Hitchcock original). In fact, rent this and "Two Lane Blacktop" from Monte Hellman, and "Mad Max" and/or "The Road Warrior". Watch all of them in as close to one sitting as you can get.

If after watching these movies, you don't understand how they're expressions of the same call to the open road, return them and give up. Not everyone was meant to hear it, just like not everyone has perfect pitch or the ability to wiggle their ears.

This movie drove me (pun intended) to take the handle kowalski and buy a Challenger of my own (flame red, 1973, you see the 1970 R/Ts are very hard to get).

It probably won't do the same for you, but if you've ever been driving down the open road and wondered what would happen if you _didn't_ get off at the next exchange, in fact if you never got off at all, then this film is for you.

And I hope the next ignoramus who compares this masterful film to "The Dukes of Hazzard" loses his brakes and plows into a line of parked Harleys outside some bar with a name like Whiskey Junction or the Dew Drop Inn.

The best road movie ever made. To appreciate it you have got to try and see it from the culture of that era. It is totally anti establishment as was the mood of half of America. So the police are all idiots, the 'good ol boys' are either violent rednecks or passive disapproving onlookers. Kowalski is going to give those mid west conservatives something they won't forget, he's going to shake things up for a day or two. Kowalski is simply the symbol of the many disenfranchised at the time. The story starts at the end. We hear a boring stifling radio news item on the price of grain. We see dreary looking bystanders who need to be turned on. Then Super Soul takes over the airwaves with his wild DJ antics and hippy music trying to jolt these people out of their fixed ways. The old and the new are clashing. This sets the mood we know from then it is rebellious. Other aspects the stunts the music the characters have been well covered below so there is no need to say more on that. Some have said that there is no point to this story or Kowalski's motives and have interpreted the title meaning that. But all a vanishing point is an artist name for the phenomena of perspective where two parallel lines seemingly meet and in the long straight roads of the journey we see plenty of vanishing points.

Gosh, I had forgotten how powerful this is.

Seeing it again is a real lesson on how certain cinematic language, if presented purely, transcends. And for a US-made movie, it is pretty pure.

If you do not know it, the primary narrative is essentially no narrative: a muscle car speeding across the desert chased by police, initially for speeding and ultimately just to exert power. This fellow is Kowalski, a name imported from a landmark film. He simply drives. It is his life now. We see flashbacks. Find he was a Medal of Honor winner in Vietnam, a star racer and then a cop. There's a backstory about his being a good cop and turning in some rotten apples, so by degrees we come to understand the moral landscape.

There is only one other character, a blind black disk jockey who is listened to by apparently everyone. Guided by his eavesdropping on police radio, and some psychic ability.

This was after "Easy Rider" and instead of bold men moving into a life, we have life chasing an honest man. Same ethic, could even have been the same man. But he knows himself. He knows he is a cinematic creature, someone to be observed and dreamed about. He knows he carries his world with him. Always borrowed.

You can see Malick here, the notion that the character sees us seeing him, that he knows he is fictional and knows we think him not. You can trace it to the female version in "Thelma and Louise," where they have their end only because they know someone will watch. Its not like "Cool Hand Luke," or "Bonnie and Clyde" at all where the man decides. That comes from the Hollywood western.

Its derived from the "Breathless" tradition.

A good third of this film is spent on the "audience," the rural townspeople. These parts are filmed in a documentary style, with — it seems — real people who have come to watch the filming, having heard on the radio from a borrowed soul. They look dumb and bored, clearly with nothing better to do than watch, just like us.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

"Vanishing Point" asks the question and, like other films of this kind before "Smokey & the Bandit" brought the genre to an end, lets us ponder the answer on our own. Other than that, there's no point to this film except to demonstrate that the Challenger is one of the best-looking muscle/sports cars ever made. Get too far into this movie & you'll want to sell your children to have one. Kowalski is a '70s knight-errant, or a Greek mythological hero, just as you please. He rides his Hemi-powered steed on a quest to San Francisco, not for a "what," or a "why," or even for a lady fair, but only for "how fast." Does he seek redemption? Escape? Self-forgiveness? To stick it to the Man? Who cares? Knavish cops close in on him, lotus-eaters like Hovah (Darden) shun him, sirens (especially the stark-naked Texter, who would've stopped Burt Reynolds's Bandit faster than Sally Field ever did) want him to dally. Sharp-featured, Western character actor Anthony James has a hilarious, uncharacteristic turn as a gay hitchhiker. Humble, noble souls come forth to guide Kowalski like angels, including a scruffy snake-hunter (Jagger), chopper jockey & drug dealer Angel (Scott), and the blind deejay Super Soul (Little, who should've been a contender for the part of Howard Beal in "Network"). The Man's attempts to explain Kowalski are annoying distractions, so hit the "mute" button when you see scenes of cops in offices. And stop wondering why Kowalski, on his quest for speed, is always being overtaken & passed by other vehicles. Just put your brain in neutral, put your popcorn where it's handy, and buckle up.