VANISHING POINT (1971)
Article 2688 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-6-2008
Posting Date: 12-22-2008
Directed by Richard C. Sarafian
Featuring Barry Newman, Cleavon Little, Dean Jagger
Country: USA

A professional driver known as Kawalski attempts to drive a souped-up 1970 Dodge Challenger from Denver to San Francisco in fifteen hours. He becomes a target of the police and gets help from various strangers enroute.

First of all, I’m not rightly sure that this 1970s cult item is really within my chosen genres; a lot depends on how much you make of the psychic link between the driver (Barry Newman) and a blind, black DJ named Super Soul (Cleavon Little). This link is not made explicit, but is implied in some of the comments made by the latter character. We’re in hazy territory here, and most of my sources don’t include this title, but John Stanley’s guide does, so I’m covering it.

Personally, I’m not a big fan of car chase movies, but for the first half of this movie, it’s something special. Rather than trying for a thrill-a-minute action spectacular, it actually manages to achieve a certain zen-like transcendence; the scenes where we see him speeding down the road while soothing guitar music plays on the soundtrack gives the movie a mystic edge, and the superb photography and location footage gives the it a haunting feel quite unlike any other movie. Unfortunately, the movie falters; as it goes along, it starts to get rather self-conscious and it gets too mired in its late sixties/early seventies “counterculture vs. the establishment” theme to really stand the test of time as well as it could have. I think it would have been better had it fully embraced some of the mythic power it taps into, and jettisoned some of its unnecessary baggage. When it works, it works beautifully; I just wish it worked all the way through.