Blow Out (1981)

You won't be disappointed!

Boring

Better Late Then Never

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

A Movie Full of Film Flourishes. The Always Fanciful and Never Shy to Show-Off Director, Brian De Palma, Relishes in the Glory of Film-Making and Makes Love to His Movies. Here He makes another Visually Interesting Picture and the Audio Track is No Side-Bar. It is Present right Beside the Images.John Travolta is a "Sound-Man" for Low-Budget Horror Movies and as He is doing some On Location Recordings, the Tapes Immediately become Central to the Plot. Not to be Upstaged, the Visual Images become just as Important. Travolta Literally Pieces Together Clues to a Crime, uncovers a Conspiracy, and the Chase is On.Nancy Allen Co-Stars as a "Honey Trap" who is in Over Her Head. The Two Encounter Cover-Ups, a Psycho-Killer, Cynical Cops, and Political Corruption in the "City of Brotherly Love" during a Week of Bi-Centennial Celebration.John Lithgow makes quite an Impression with Limited Screen Time. Dennis Franz is Typecast as a Sleaze who Drinks, Drools, Urinates, and Oozes Odorous Obscenity.De Palma Pulls every Trick in His Considerable Bag of Cinematic Trademarks to make this a Pulse-Pounding, Neo-Noir and it is one of His Most Bleak and Depressing Movies.Colors Explode from the Screen as De Palma Paints a Picture just a Heartbeat Removed from Reality. An Amped Up, Pulpy Presentation with Crafty Cinematography (Vilmos Zsigmond), Music and Sound that is an Earful, and a Pace that is Swift and Unrelenting.Another De Palma Movie that is a Delight the way it Pays Homage to Film and Filmmakers of the Past with Referential Playfulness and Artistic Hubris. The Director has made Many Movies. All are Interesting at the Very Least, Entertaining, and some are Great Films. This One Falls somewhere in there, Depending on Point of View.Where it Ranks in the Director's Impressive Filmography is an "Eye of the Beholder" Thing and this one is a Sight...and Sound...to Behold.

Based on all the Brian De Palma films I have seen as of now, I have no problem is stating that 'Blow Out' is my absolute favorite among them. De Palma's technical prowess has never been in doubt and it is again on show in this tightly paced conspiracy thriller, but he also adds layers to the screenplay through his visual choices and the protagonist Jack Terry played by John Travolta has the kind of depth and humanity that I couldn't find in some of his other films.While talking about the themes of the film, one has to make a comparative analysis because the nature of the film lends itself to such an approach. The connection to Antonioni's 'Blow Up' is unmissable if someone watches both the films. Both films are about a person unearthing a truth through their technical expertise, a truth that could somewhat go unnoticed by a layman. However De Palma is in no way trying to bring in an element of abstract existentialism that is a big part of 'Blow Up'. I think 'Blow Out' is also influenced by Hitchcock's 'Vertigo'. De Palma uses the colours of Red, White and Blue in a very meaningful and thematically poignant way just like Hitchcock did with the colours red and green in 'Vertigo'. As a matter of fact the shot of Manny's apartment room engulfed by the red neon light was very reminiscent of Judy's apartment in 'Vertigo' which had the green neon light coming in from outside. 'Blow Out' also shares with 'Vertigo' the Orpheus-esque theme of a character hurt by something in the past intentionally going through a similar incident again which breaks him permanently. 'Blow Out' can be compared with Coppola's 'The Conversation'(which was also tangentially influenced by 'Blow Up') because both films involve a character whose past trauma has led them to resort to something else for spiritual respite. For Jack Terry in 'Blow Out' it is the B- movie industry, while for Harry Caul in 'The Conversation', it is religion. However Jack isn't as psychologically broken and introverted as Harry was.Apart from everything that I mentioned, one can't forget that this is a political conspiracy film. The film was made at a time when USA was ready to move on after enduring the traumatic incidents that marked the 70s like Vietnam and Watergate by electing Ronald Reagan. De Palma at a political climate like this coming out with a film of this sort, must have tried to claim that this is nothing but a false sunrise and in the end, the film and the political deviousness that is depicted in 'Blow Out' turned out to be prescient. I think 'Blow Out' is also a bit of a love letter to all the grind-house sleazy exploitation films of the 1970s. The film opens with a scene which makes fun of these kind of films including De Palma's own films which did at times go overboard with the sleaziness. But over the course of the film and especially with the beautiful ending De Palma conveys that no matter how technically inept and thematically vapid these exploitation films may be, they still will always carry the filmmakers' blood, sweat and tears. There will still be something personal in these films too.The screenplay for the most part works. But there are a few sloppy elements here and there like exposition through television news reels and I also thought the climactic set-piece of the film gets a little too overblown. However the mild shortcomings of the screenplay get completely outweighed by De Palma's technical mastery. We get split screens, split diopter shots, tracking shots,etc. like all other De Palma films. There is a particular scene where De Palma uses the 360 degree shot and the camera revolves in a circular motion over and over again and it brilliantly expresses the paranoia of Jack in the scene.This might be Travolta's best role of his career. He is brilliant with the nuance as well as the gradual sense of paranoia that engulfs him. He fully realises the character and endures the psychological journey that the character of Jack goes through in a convincing way. Nancy Allen is very sweet and likable as Sally, although it can be said that at times, the character becomes a bit too dumb. John Lithgow is also brilliant as the psychotic Burke.I will end this review by saying that although I made a very thematic analysis of the film, simultaneously I also have to drive home the fact that 'Blow Out' is not just a thematically poignant, but also a very entertaining and funny film. It has something for everyone. Highly recommended.

Jack Terry (John Travolta) is a sound recording artist for B-movies. One night, he's out recording sounds when a car drives off the bridge. He dives into the creek and rescues Sally (Nancy Allen). It turns out that state governor McRyan was the driver. McRyan's man Lawrence Henry convinces Jack to cover up Sally's involvement. As he examines his recording, he discovers what sounds like a gunshot. Meanwhile Burke (John Lithgow) is trying to cover it all up. Manny Karp (Dennis Franz) filmed the incident and is selling the pictures.This is Brian De Palma with many of his visual touches. It's reminiscent of other great movies Blowup and The Conversation. Travolta is in his early hot streak. I wish Nancy Allen didn't do the girly voice and her character not be so slow. The story is full of paranoia and turns. I love the simplicity of Travolta working on his film. The whole movie has a great sense of impending doom.

Nineteen Eighty-One was an unusually good year for actors in leading roles (look at my number of nominees) but sadly, some of the best weren't even nominated. For example, my choice for Best Actor, John Travolta gave arguably his best performance in Brian De Palma's great film noir thriller Blow Out. Travolta took the role because he had wanted a film that would focus on his acting rather than on his sex appeal. So, he re-teamed with De Palma, who had previously directed him in Carrie, and was even paired with the same co-star, Nancy Allen.In Blow Out, Travolta plays Jack Terri, a skilled soundman who works on the fringes of the film industry providing sound effects for bad horror movies. This is the best work he can get because long ago, he worked for the police, wiring undercover officers for sting operations until one of his wire taps malfunctioned and got a man killed. Now, he puts his skills to work in the arena of Z-Grade slasher flicks – the kind where sorority girls dance naked in their dorm rooms while a mad slasher stalks them with a butcher knife.His destiny changes one night when he is out recording sounds for a movie. Standing on a foot bridge, near a road he witnesses a car have a blow out and careen through a guardrail and into the lake. He dives in to save the passengers and finds two people in the car, one is a man who is already dead and the other is a woman that he pulls to safety. Later, in the hospital, the police aggressively question him about the incident but they seem less interested in his facts than in pushing him toward the story they want him to tell. A government official tells him that the man in the car was a highly respected presidential candidate and the girl was part of a plot to blackmail him (comparisons to Chappaquiddick are inevitable).Jack is told to keep quiet about the story and forget about the girl. He is warned that exposing the true facts about the accident would embarrass the man's family, but Jack suspects that a cover up may be at work. He meets the girl that he rescued, named Sally (Nancy Allen), a sweet but none-too-bright floozy and suspects that someone may try to kill her.Despite advice to let the case go, Jack becomes obsessed, playing his tape over and over and thinks he hears a gunshot right before the crucial blow out. Later a sleazy photographer named Manny (Dennis Franz) comes forward with photographs that end up in Newsweek and, in a great scene, Jack cuts the photos out of the magazine and makes them into a flip-book that he films one frame at a time then adds his audio track over it. What develops is a perfect home movie (reminiscent of the Zapruder film) that clearly shows gunfire coming from the bushes on the other side of the road. He also comes to realize that the reason that Sally was in the car was due to a bizarre blackmail scheme.The story, however, is much larger than Jack realizes. There are forces at work to keep Jack's tape from reaching the news. The worst is a slimy clean-up man named Burke (John Lithgow) who is killing prostitutes all over Philadelphia to plant hysteria over a serial killer in order to have a convenient cover when he eliminates Sally. Jack knows she is in danger but knows nothing about Burke, who has broken into his recording studio and erased all of his tapes but fortunately missed the crucial tape that Jack had hidden in the ceiling panel.Jack meets a journalist who agrees to meet with him at a secret location to get the tape – the only copy that he still has. Unfortunately, their conversation is overheard by Burke who has tapped Jack's phone. What happens next I must leave for you to discover except to say that the films third act is borne out of the story, out of the events that have come before and never feel forced or tacked on.What Travolta creates in Jack Terri is a classic film noir hero, a guy who gets into a situation way over his head, tries to protect a doomed woman and won't take the good advice to leave well enough alone. Jack tries again and again to do the right thing, to correct an injustice but there are forces at work that want to prevent him from breaking the conspiracy. Buried under that urgency is, Jack's determination to keep from repeating his past mistakes. Years before, he failed to save an officer when his wire tap failed. Now, he tries to prevent Sally from falling into the same trap.There's an effective moodiness to Travolta's performance, he isn't totally likable, but he isn't off-putting either. He is a guy haunted by personal demons and the urgency to do the right thing. He thinks that he is onto a simple cover-up, but discovers too late that the real story is larger than he had thought. His final moment is absolutely perfect, as he has finally found the perfect scream for his film, a scream that comes from real life. This expert sound man covers his ears and can listen no more.