Blow Out
BLOW OUT (18)
D: Brian de Palma
Filmways (George Litto)
US 🇺🇸 1981
108 mins
ThrillerÂ
W: Brian de Palma
DP: Vilmos Zsigmond
Ed: Paul Hirsch
Mus: Pino Donaggio
John Travolta (Jack Terry), Nancy Allen (Sally Bedina), John Lithgow (Burke), Dennis Franz (Manny Karp), Peter Boyden (Sam)
One of Brian de Palma’s best films and certainly his very best when it comes to the Hitchcockian style of the films that inspired his filmmaking career.
John Travolta plays Jack Terry, a sound designer who works on schlocky horror movies who witnesses a car accident whilst out recording at night. Rescuing a woman from the car, he becomes further embroiled in mystery and intrigue when he realises that the accident may have been a political assassination which he had caught on his recordings.
The plot borrows heavily from Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1966 film, Blow Up, as well as Francis Ford Coppola’s 1974 masterpiece, The Conversation, both of which are far better films, but de Palma also does a lot of his own thing here with a more grubby, sordid visual style and an ending that borders upon genius.
It also happens to feature one of John Travolta’s finest screen performances, though John Lithgow’s creepy villain is quite wasted with screen time that is way too short.
7/10
