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U Turn is a 1997 American neo-noir crime thriller film directed by Oliver Stone, and starring Sean Penn, Billy Bob Thornton, Jennifer Lopez, Jon Voight, Powers Boothe, Joaquin Phoenix, Claire Danes and Nick Nolte. It is based on the book Stray Dogs by John Ridley, who also wrote the screenplay.
| U Turn | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Oliver Stone |
| Written by | John Ridley |
| Based on | Stray Dogs by John Ridley |
| Produced by | Dan Halsted Clayton Townsend |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Robert Richardson |
| Edited by | Hank Corwin Thomas J. Nordberg |
| Music by | Ennio Morricone |
Production companies | |
| Distributed by | Sony Pictures Releasing |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 125 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $19 million (estimated) |
| Box office | $6.6 million (US) |
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Bobby Cooper is a young drifter traveling in a 1964½ Ford Mustang convertible. He has a bandaged left hand and is secretly transporting a gym bag full of cash owed to a gangster in Los Angeles. The journey takes a turn when Bobby's car breaks down due to a burst radiator hose on the outskirts of Superior, Arizona. Bobby leaves his car with Darrell, the local mechanic, who informs him that repairs will take three to four hours. Bobby keeps the gym bag with the cash but leaves his pistol in the car's trunk.
While exploring the town, Bobby meets Grace outside a hardware store. He offers to help her carry her newly purchased drapes. Their chemistry sparks as Bobby shares a fabricated story about his injured hand, claiming it was an accident. Grace invites him to her house for a shower, deepening their connection. During the shower, it is revealed that his hand injury resulted from a brutal punishment for an overdue debt—two of his fingers were cut off. After freshening up, Bobby makes a move on Grace, but she rebuffs his advances until a sudden kiss is interrupted by her older husband, Jake McKenna.
Bobby attempts to explain himself, stating ignorance of Grace’s marital status. However, Jake retaliates with a punch. On his way back to town, Jake offers Bobby a lift and oddly proposes a dark hypothetical: would Bobby kill Grace for money? Bobby dismisses this question, unsure of Jake's intent. Bobby visits a convenience store where he becomes an unwitting victim of a robbery. The teenage assailants steal his gym bag, but the store owner retaliates with a shotgun, killing them both and mangling Bobby's cash in the crossfire. With no money and unable to pay the mechanic, Bobby frantically tries to reach out to acquaintances for help, including the gangster he owes, but his pleas are met with hostility.
At a local bar, Bobby meets Jenny, a troubled teenager who flirts with him. This encounter attracts the ire of her violent boyfriend, T.N.T., A brawl nearly breaks out, but Sheriff Virgil Potter intervenes, showing disapproval towards Bobby as an outsider and ordering him to leave town once repairs are completed. Returning to Darrell's garage, Bobby finds that additional repairs have been made, increasing the cost. Darrell has also rifled through the trunk and taken Bobby's gun. A confrontation ensues, escalating into a mess as Bobby realizes he is trapped, with Darrell continuing to leverage his repairs against Bobby's dwindling resources.
Wondering what to do for money, Bobby remembers the offer Jake made to him earlier in the car. He approaches Jake about the deal, who initially passes the comment off as a joke. Bobby says that he could tell Jake was serious about the offer and that he is serious about taking him up on it. Jake tells him that he would need to take Grace out of town and push her off a cliff in order to make the murder look like a suicide.
A dream sequence shows that Bobby couldn't go through with it and ends up having sex with her instead as it cuts back into the real world. Grace cuts the sex short however just before he comes, leading Bobby to call her the "Queen of hot-and-cold". Grace reveals that she is not just Jake's wife; she is also his illegitimate child. Jake sexually abused her from a young age and then married her after her mother died. Her mother was found dead at the bottom of a cliff but her death was ruled a suicide. Grace doesn't believe she killed herself. Her death is eerily similar to how Jake told Bobby to kill Grace. Grace then asks Bobby if he would kill Jake, meaning the two of them could steal his money which Grace would not have access to otherwise. Bobby initially refuses, clearly not trusting Grace.
Still broke and aware that the gangsters will send someone to find him, Bobby attempts to buy a ticket out of town in order to escape. Although he doesn't have enough money, the clerk gives him the ticket anyway after he becomes aggressive and hostile. After buying the ticket he sees one of the gangsters driving towards him. However, the Sheriff stops the gangster and arrests him for speeding. Thinking he is safe, Bobby is then attacked by T.N.T. who has been attempting to fight him. TNT takes Bobby's ticket, rips it up and eats it, causing Bobby to lose his temper and badly beats him up. Just then, Jenny appears and yells at Bobby to stop beating up her boyfriend, is now comforting him. Bobby angrily storms out of the bus station, seeing how crazy not only Jenny is, but the entire town is.
Knowing he is out of options, Bobby phones Grace and agrees with her plan to kill Jake for his money. She instructs him to come on over to the house after dark for the deed to be done. That evening after the sun sets, Bobby breaks into Jake's house while Jake is having sex with Grace, but Bobby accidentally makes a noise. Jake goes downstairs to investigate and finds Bobby, who then tells Jake that killing him was Grace's idea and that he'll kill Grace for just enough money to pay for a car. Grace overhears this and attacks Bobby when he walks into the room. However, she is really waiting for Jake to return so that she can kill him. After killing Jake, Bobby and Grace unlock his safe to find $200,000 in cash. They then have sex in front of his dead body.
The next morning, Bobby goes to Darrell to pay him and finally gets his car back. When Bobby returns to the house, Grace's car is gone. Bobby thinks she has run off with the all the money but she shows up at the front door. As they drive off and out of town in Bobby's car, however, they are pulled over by Sheriff Potter. Here we find out that Grace has also been sleeping with him. Grace appears to turn on Bobby, blaming him for Jake's death and telling the sheriff that Bobby just killed her husband. However, just as Sheriff Potter places Bobby under arrest, she pulls out her gun and shoots the sheriff dead. Bobby helps Grace put the sheriff in the car trunk with Jake.
As Bobby and Grace are dumping the two bodies off a cliff, Bobby elbows Grace in the nose and takes her gun, telling her that he does not trust her and that when they reach California they will split the money and go their separate ways. Grace says that when she blamed Jake's death on Bobby, she was merely baiting the Sheriff so she could kill him, much like Bobby baited Jake when he said he would kill Grace. The implication seems to be that Bobby would have killed Grace rather than Jake if he'd had to. As they are talking, Grace suddenly pushes Bobby over the cliff, not killing him but severely injuring him. Grace smirks and tells Bobby laying at the bottom of the 60-foot cliff that his suspicions about her were correct; she really is too greedy to split the money in any way, and she used him so she could steal all of Jake's money for herself. She also tells Bobby that she was the one who killed her mother by pushing her off the very same cliff, for reasons not made clear.
As Grace gets back in the car to drive off, she realizes that Bobby has taken the keys. Bobby pleads with her to come down and help him. She does so, knowing she needs the keys. When she gets close enough however, he strangles her to death with his bare hands. Grace manages to shoot Bobby with her gun before she expires, but it is a non-fatal wound to his right hip. Bobby then makes the grueling journey back up the cliff with a broken leg, a broken arm, his gunshot wound and several other serious and superficial injuries. Relieved that he is finally back in his car and with all the money, he starts the car to drive off, only for the radiator hose to burst again like it did in the opening scene. Bobby sits back and laughs insanely of his continuing bad luck as he looks up at the bright blue sky aware that he will now die in the desert heat without anyone to help him now.
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- Sean Penn as Bobby Cooper
- Jennifer Lopez as Grace McKenna
- Nick Nolte as Jake McKenna
- Powers Boothe as Sheriff Virgil Potter
- Claire Danes as Jenny
- Joaquin Phoenix as Toby N. "TNT" Tucker
- Jon Voight as Blind Indian
- Billy Bob Thornton as Darrell
- Abraham Benrubi as Biker #1
- Sean Stone as Boy In Grocery Store
- Ilia Volok as Sergei
- Valery Nikolaev as Mr. Arkady
- Brent Briscoe as Ed
- Bo Hopkins as Boyd
- Julie Hagerty as Flo
- Sheri Foster as Grace's Mother
- Liv Tyler as Girl In Bus Station (Cameo)
- Laurie Metcalf as Bus Station Ticket Attendant
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U Turn was filmed during November 1996–January 1997 on location in Superior, Arizona and other areas of Arizona and California, including the Coachella Valley.[1] It was filmed entirely on reversal film stock, 5239, to give an extra harsh look to the hostile environment.[2]
Casting
For the Toby N. Tucker role, Joaquin Phoenix said small-town style gave him the inspiration and the idea for the haircut, which was "TNT" (the character's initials) shaved on the back of his head. "These kids in these small towns, these fads that just roll over them," he told Rough Cut Magazine in October 1998. "Like, five years pass and they still hang on to them. So, I thought it was really great if he shaves his name, he thinks he's really notorious."[3]
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Reaction by critics to U Turn was mixed. Roger Ebert gave the film 1½ stars out of four, deeming it a "repetitive, pointless exercise in genre filmmaking—the kind of film where you distract yourself by making a list of the sources".[4] James Berardinelli rated the film three stars out of four, stating "for those who enjoy movies on the edge, U-Turn offers just the trajectory you might expect."[5] Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote that it "demonstrates a filmmaker in complete command of his craft and with little control over his impulses".[6] U Turn holds a 59% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 54 reviews, with the consensus: "U-Turn is a lurid, stylish lark that boasts striking moments but lacks the focus and weight of Oliver Stone's best work." On Metacritic, it has a rating of 54 out of 100 based on 20 reviews, indicating mixed or average reviews.[7] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C+" on an A+ to F scale.[8]
Later, Oliver Stone said: “Certain people really liked U Turn. More than you might think claimed it was the one they “most liked” of my films. It’s certainly different, and its incest storyline was verboten to the average American viewer. Let’s just say, you need a sense of humor for this one."[9]
The film was nominated for two Golden Raspberry Awards: Worst Director (which went to Kevin Costner for The Postman) and Worst Supporting Actor (Jon Voight, also for Most Wanted; ultimately, he "lost" to Dennis Rodman for Double Team). It was also included on Siskel and Ebert's "Worst Films of 1997" episode.[10] In the episode, Gene Siskel reflected that: "U Turn [had] the same highly stylized violence as Stone's Natural Born Killers, but without that film's intellectual content, U Turn seems like Stone's attempt at a commercial hit – and he failed, miserably."[10]
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The film was remade in India as the 2004 action thriller Musafir by Sanjay Gupta. The film had a more favorable critical reception, with some considering it better than U Turn.[11]
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