Taglines: Sex. Murder. Betrayal. Everything that makes life worth living.
U-Turn movie storyline. A drifter named Bobby (Sean Penn) is on his way to pay off a large debt of $13,000 to a gangster in Las Vegas when his car breaks down, forcing him to drive to the nearest town, Superior, Arizona. He takes the money with him but leaves his gun in the trunk of his car.
While waiting for his car to be fixed by the town mechanic, Darrell (Billy Bob Thornton), he wanders around town where he meets Grace McKenna (Jennifer Lopez). Not realizing she is married, he hits on her and helps her carry some drapes to her car. She offers to take him back to her house where he can have a shower.
While in the shower, it is revealed that the “accident” that happened to his hand was in fact a punishment for the overdue debt – two of his fingers were cut off. After his shower he attempts to seduce Grace, who is cold to his advances. He goes to leave, saying he is not interested in playing games. The two then kiss, and are caught by Grace’s husband Jake (Nick Nolte), who punches Bobby.
As Bobby is walking back to town Jake pulls up beside him and offers him a lift. After a casual conversation about Grace, Jake asks Bobby if he would kill her for a price. Bobby laughs this off and asks Jake if he is just trying to “rattle” him.
Later on when Bobby is in a convenience store, the store is held up. The robbers take his bag with all his money in it but the shop owner takes out a shotgun and kills them both, destroying most of the money in the process. Broke and stranded, Bobby frantically calls nearly everyone he knows trying to get money to fix his car. He even calls the gangster he owes money to asking him for money but the gangster angrily refuses. The gangster now knows where Bobby is and sends someone after him.
U Turn is a 1997 neo-western neo-noir crime thriller film directed by Oliver Stone, and based on the book Stray Dogs by John Ridley. It stars Sean Penn, Jennifer Lopez, Nick Nolte, Powers Boothe, Claire Danes, Joaquin Phoenix, Billy Bob Thornton, Jon Voight, Aida Linares and Julie Hagerty.
U Turn was filmed in 1996 on location in Superior, Arizona and other areas of Arizona and California, including the Coachella Valley. It was filmed entirely on Reversal stock, 5239, to give an extra harsh look to the hostile environment.
Film Review for U-Turn
Only Oliver Stone knows what he was trying to accomplish by making “U-Turn,” and it is a secret he doesn’t share with the audience. This is a repetitive, pointless exercise in genre filmmaking–the kind of movie where you distract yourself by making a list of the sources.
Much of the story comes from “Red Rock West,” John Dahl’s 1994 film about a man and a wife who both try to persuade a drifter to kill the other. And the images and milieu are out of Russ Meyer country; his “Cherry, Harry and Raquel” and “SuperVixens” contain the same redneck sheriffs, the same lustful wives, the same isolated shacks and ignorant mechanics and car culture. “U-Turn” and “Cherry” both end, indeed, with a debt to “Duel in the Sun.”
I imagine Stone made this movie as sort of a lark, after the exhausting but remarkable accomplishments of “Nixon,” “Natural Born Killers,” “Heaven and Earth” and “JFK.” Well, he deserves a break–but this one? Stone is a gifted filmmaker not afraid to take chances, to express ideas in his films and make political statements. Here he’s on holiday. Watching “U-Turn,” I was reminded of a concert pianist playing “Chopsticks”: It is done well, but one is disappointed to find it done at all.
The film stars Sean Penn in a convincing performance all the more admirable for being pointless. He plays Bobby, a man who has had bad luck up the road (his bandaged hand is missing two fingers), and will have a lot more bad luck in the desert town of Superior, Ariz. He wheels into town in his beloved Mustang convertible, which needs a new radiator hose, and encounters the loathsome Darrell (Billy Bob Thornton), a garage mechanic he will eventually be inspired to call an “ignorant inbred turtleneck hick.”
While Darrell works on the car, Bobby walks into town. Superior is one of those backwater hells much beloved in the movies, where everyone is malevolent, oversexed, narrow-eyed and hateful. There are never any industries in these towns (except for garages, saloons and law enforcement) because everyone is too preoccupied by sex, lying, scheming, embezzling and hiring strangers to kill each other.
Bobby quickly finds a sultry young woman named Grace (Jennifer Lopez), and is invited home to help her install her drapes and whatever else comes to mind. Soon her enraged husband, Jake (Nick Nolte), comes charging in, red-eyed and bewhiskered, to threaten Bobby with his life, but after the obligatory fight, they meet down the road and Jake asks Bobby to kill his wife. Soon Grace will want Bobby to kill her husband (the “Red Rock West” bit), and the film leads to one of those situations where Bobby’s life depends on which one he believes.
Superior, Ariz., is the original town without pity. During the course of his brief stay there, Bobby will be kicked in the ribs several dozen times, almost be bitten by a tarantula, shot at, and have his car all but destroyed–and that’s all before the final scenes with the vultures circling overhead. Bobby comes across almost like a character in a computer game; you wipe him out, he falls down, stars spin around his head, and then he jumps up again, ready for action.
The film is well made on the level of craft; of course it is, with this strong cast, and Stone directing, and Robert Richardson as cinematographer. But it goes around and around until, like a merry-go-round rider, we figure out that the view is always changing but it’s never going to be new. There comes a sinking feeling, half an hour into the film, when we realize that the characters are not driven by their personalities and needs, but by the plot. At that point they become puppets, not people. That’s the last thing we’d expect in a film by Oliver Stone.
U-Turn (1997)
Directed by: Oliver Stone
Starring: Sean Penn, Jennifer Lopez, Nick Nolte, Powers Boothe, Claire Danes, Joaquin Phoenix, Billy Bob Thornton, Jon Voight, Aida Linares, Julie Hagerty
Screenplay by: John Ridley, Oliver Stone
Production Design by: Victor Kempster, Jacqueline M. Granger
Cinematography by: Robert Richardson
Film Editing by: Hank Corwin, Thomas J. Nordberg
Costume Design by: Beatrix Aruna Pasztor
Set Decoration by: Merideth Boswell
Art Direction by: Dan Webster
Music by: Ennio Morricone
MPAA Rating: R for strong violence, sexuality and language.
Distributed by: TriStar Pictures
Release Date: October 3, 1997
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