Bloodtype Online

    A man named Kowalski is really determined to deliver the 1970 Dodge Challenger to San Francisco in this classic from the early 70s.  The story starts off with Kowalski delivering a car to his Denver contact that tells him to take a couple of days off.  Kowalski brushes him off and picks up his next delivery, which is a beautiful super charged 1970 Dodge Challenger.  Off he goes, stopping long enough to pick up some uppers from a drug dealer whom he then bets that he can make the drive to San Francisco in 15 hours.  Things go well until a couple of motorcycle cops try to pull him over and he runs them off of the road.  Of course this irritates the state highway patrol so they send out a bulletin and begin coordinating resources to track him down.  This is where we meet up with the other main character in Vanishing Point, Super Soul the radio DJ.  He picks up the bulletin and starts to talk right to Kowalski over the radio show.  The rest of the movie is Kowalski trying to avoid the cops while running into all sorts of interesting people in the desert between Colorado and California.  It is thru these encounters and several flashbacks that we get to know Kowalski and start to understand that there is more to him than just speed (both the drugs and the car!).  As Super Soul points out Kowalski may be the last free man on the road.  Do does he make to San Francisco or does the man take him down?  It is well worth a viewing to find out. 

    Let me start off the review with a warning.  I’m a huge car guy, especially muscle cars from the 60s and early 70s.  So any movie that has a muscle car as a major character is going to automatically appeal to me.  But there is so much more to Vanishing Point than just the car chases and stunts.  If you really pay attention to the people that Kowalski meets and the flashbacks of his life you will see a man who is disconnected with life and is just looking to cross over that next horizon to see what is there.  The direction on this film is brilliant and allows the story to come to the audience without beating them over the head with a lot of dialog or exposition.  Even the flashbacks to Kowalski’s past are just enough to begin to understand where he is coming from, without feeling the need to explain too much.  This story may seem a bit dated as it really is a commentary on the 60s and the lost hope but it is still very effective.  In fact I consider this to be a much superior film in this respect than the much better known Easy Rider.  The cast does all right with what is honestly a very thin script when to comes to traditional story and dialog.  But this really isn’t an actor’s film and to be truthful the car gets more screen time than most of the cast.  The car chases in the movie are well done, but may feel a bit small in scale to a modern audience.  Overall the technical aspects of this film aren’t as important to what it is.  Vanishing Point captures the feeling of an entire decade and maybe a generation and wraps it into an entertaining package that is fun and serious at the same time.   

    I highly recommend this movie.  You can’t consider yourself a true fan of the grindhouse/drive-in scene if you haven’t at least seen Vanishing Point.  It is a true classic of the genre. 

Rating - ****

-John "El Juan" Shatzer