U Turn (1997)

arizona!!
this is not only oliver stone's finest hour, or two, it's the best movie from the 90's. sean penn's character, bobby cooper, starts a trail of bad luck when his '64 1/2 mustang breaks down in superior, az. from there, it only gets worse, as he has two of his fingers cut off, gets robbed, suffers a broken nose, and gets beaten up by toby n. tucker (t.n.t.). joaquin phoenix is the star here: even though he only has three scenes, he owns every moment of screen time he gets. in the end, nick nolte, powers boothe, jennifer lopez and penn all end up dead in the arizona mountains. it's a durn shame that stone didn't win for best director for this, because this is as good as filmmaking gets. fun fact: nick nolte's rear-end is on display here!

An overlooked Oliver Stone film with a twisted plot and first-rate cast
Oliver Stone's U Turn is a small town Arizona story with love crosses and plot twists galore. A drifter (Sean Penn) breaks down in the Arizona back-woods and gets entangled with a spitfire (Jennifer Lopez) who wants to leave her twisted, abusive husband (Nick Nolte). The husband, on the other hand, wants his wife murdered. The town mechanic (Billy Bob Thornton) is a greasy local who dislikes city slicker outsiders and doesn't aim to make Penn's character's life any easier. Our hero also gets mixed up with a cute local waitress (Claire Danes) seeking refuge from her abusive boyfriend (Joaquin Phoenix).

The movie is a day-in-the-life-of look at a strange little desert town with hidden undercurrents and long-standing family secrets. With an all-star cast and plot upheavals galore, the viewing is a full-on thrill-ride. Highly recommended. Also check out Clay Pigeons.

Ridley + Stone + Penn = serious rock 'n roll.
U Turn (Oliver Stone, 1997)

I'm a big fan of Stray Dogs, the John Ridley novel upon which U-Turn is based, and I avoided the film for while because, really, how many film adaptations of your best-loved novels actually work the way you want them to? I shouldn't have worried, though; U-Turn is the stuff, most decidedly.

The plot: Bobby Cooper, an on-the-run tennis pro (Sean Penn) has his car conk out on him just shy of a very, very weird little desert town. One of its residents, Grace McKenna (Jennifer Lopez), immediately catches his eye, but he soon finds out she's married to a nasty old character named Jake (Nick Nolte), who'd just as soon see her dead-- and offers Bobby fifty grand to do the deed. Immediately, a complex web of deceit unfurls among all the characters, complicated by a number of even stranger events happening at just the wrong time to make Bobby's life miserable.

The main thing that sticks out about this movie is the caliber of its cast, and the caliber of the performances they give. When you have to stick Jon Voight and Billy Bob Thornton seventh and eighth in credits order, you've got a high-powered cast working for you. All of them are spot on. The plot moves forward at almost blinding speed (just as it did in the book; Ridley adapted his own novel), and the viewer has very little time to do anything but clench his teeth and hang on for the ride until the final credits roll. It's just plain fun. I'm not sure why I stopped watching Oliver Stone flicks in the late eighties (okay, yeah I am-- Born on the Fourth of July, The Doors, and JFK back to back got a little heavy in to the world of way-out conspiracy theory for me), but I'm glad I've started again. *** ½