Go
Doug Liman, 1999
Screening at Cinema Nova for a limited time.
Words by Noah Jordan
The 90s cinematic landscape featured a pile of witty, nihilistic crime films cut from the same cheap velvet cloth of Pulp Fiction (1994). Cynical vagrants being disorderly was an exciting new cinematic formula that capitalised off an edgy, antisocial and underrepresented generation X. Some offerings (Get Shorty (1995), Run Lola Run (1998), Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998)) shone brightly. Less appealing offers (8 Heads in a Duffle Bag (1997), Boondock Saints (1999)) were also tossed to the pile, producers naively hoping that criminals and sarcasm were the key ingredients to earn money from white boys with bleached hair.
From under this grungy 90s heap, born of a tumultuous production, crawled Go, Doug Liman and John August’s first and last collaboration. Liman, famously erratic and difficult, subsequently brought The Bourne Identity (2002) to life, as well as Mr and Mrs Smith (2005), Edge of Tomorrow (2014), and more recently, Road House (2024) and The Instigators (2024). August is the brain behind Charlie’s Angels (2000), and penned Big Fish (2003), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), and Aladdin (2019). Both have gone on to create what you might describe as relatively sensible, commercially minded movies. Watching Go feels like discovering these two industry powerhouse’s dirty little secret.
With frenetic energy and trashiness spilling from its seams, the movie mirrors its own conception and production. To the horror of his agent, Liman turned down Heartbreakers (2001) to make Go, which at the time had only one fifth of Heartbreakers budget. He shot most of the film himself on a handheld 35mm camera to save time, and often acted as his own camera operator. Shooting days ran long with no breaks, and club scenes were shot without permits at real clubs to save budget. Liman and the producers took the cast and crew to real Vegas strip clubs to help them ‘understand’ what they were like, and similarly gambled at Casinos for the same reason. A third of the budget went to the car chase in the film, and in preparation for it Liman himself cleared human shit from the street. In an interview he said of the process “I knew while I was making it that this was gonna be my last juvenile movie. I was gonna have to grow up”. This chaotic, asinine, last hurrah attitude is plastered all over the film. It’s part of its crude charm, a sort of celebration of boisterous, uncontrolled and belligerent behaviour (be it occasionally chauvinistic).
Structured around one night, the film tells three interlinked stories from three different perspectives. The stories themselves are irreverent, centred around drug deals gone wrong, dramatic sexcapades and erratic and horny undercover agents. The basics are; Ronna (Sarah Polley), a grocery clerk, short on rent and up for eviction takes an extra shift from her dealer mate Simon (Desmon Askew) while he heads to Vegas. A couple, Adam and Zack (Jay Mohr and Scott Wolf), approach her asking to help them score ‘20 hits of X’, and sensing an opportunity to make an extra buck, Ronna goes about trying to squeeze some money from her and Simon’s dealer, Todd (Timothy Olyphant). The story then splits into three separate but intertwined threads; Ronna’s quest to scam Todd, Simon’s time in Vegas and Adam and Zack’s dining experience with a fucking weird cop (William Fichter). It’s a messy almost-mystery, but it keeps the mystery itself so arbitrary that it never fully becomes a genre piece. Each story feels irrelevant from the next, but recurring details have you puzzling until they pop up in a second or third story iteration to draw the disparate plotlines into a cohesive whole. It’s like a magic eye picture, slowly illuminating trippy fractal elements until an admittedly interesting, but ultimately insignificant answer is revealed.
While the general vibe of the film is aggressively 90s, the characters are somehow even more so. Simon feels like a forgotten side character from Trainspotting accidentally wandered onto set. Todd is what would happen if you locked Edward Scissorhands in the gym and made him sell drugs. William Fichter is compelling as an aggressively wired cop, ready to pounce on whatever is thrown in front of him. Melissa McCarthy also makes her first film appearance in a great minute long scene involving an awkward love triangle. John August was so taken by her performance that he wrote the short film God for her afterwards, which played a huge role in kickstarting her career. The performances are far from subtle or emotional, but if they were, I doubt the product would be nearly as fun.
For what it lacks in tightness around the story, it makes up for in pure 1999 adrenaline direct to your spine. Faded bleached and dyed hair, wrap around speed dealers, pagers, leather jackets. Even the inflection of the dialogue has a specific whingy tonality that feels ripped from 1997. Pumping bass thumps through the film like the heartbeat of a hyperventilating raver on the come up. The shredding guitars and moody lilt of Gwen Stefani rings over an epic party montage. It’s as close to Y2K as you can get without crossing the century. A side effect of the brutal periodisation of the film is the occasional careless discussion of topics or use of language that these days tends to be treated with slightly more nuance and care. But it’s of its time, and none of the insensitivity is done with malicious intent, more so done with carefree turn of the century gusto. Seeing the violation of taboo amongst the clusterfuck of the rest of the movie adds to the ridiculous, over-the-top campness of the viewing experience.
While not a box office success, Go tapped into the ennui, frustration and anti-traditionalist values that sat in the hearts of a great deal of young people, and turned those sentiments into a sleazy romp that captured the youthful, edgy aesthetics of a time with passionate clarity. As the flow of popular culture moves faster and cultural trends become fleeting, exploding for a day or two, then disappearing forever, capturing the essence of youth culture becomes harder. Having a movie so successfully immortalise the zeitgeist of a generation is exciting, and perhaps something that will only become more difficult to do. A touchstone of underground culture in the late 90s, and a fascinating look at Liman and August before their highly successful and commercial careers. A spirited, neon, nauseating mess.
WEEKLY FILM LISTINGS
05 Sept - 12 Sept
New Releases
Last Summer
Catherine Breillat, 2023
Screening at arthouse cinemas exl Palace
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
Tim Burton, 2024
Screening at most cinemas
Strange Darling
J.T. Mollner, 2024
Screening at most arthouse cinemas
Film Festivals:
Taiwan Film Festival - 5–12 Sept
Program here
Korean Film Festival in Melbourne - 5–8 Sept
Program here
Matinees
Goodbye Julia
Mohamed Kordofani, 2023
Screening Fri - Sun
Focus on Radu Jude
Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World
Radu Jude, 2023
Screening Fri 6 Sep
I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians
Radu Jude, 2018
Screening Sat 7 Sept
Aferim!
Radu Jude, 2015
Screening Sun 8 Sept
Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn
Radu Jude, 2020
Screening Mon 09 Sept
No screening this week
ASTOR CINEMA
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Quentin Tarantino, 2019
Screening Thurs, Sat, Sun
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Jim Sharman, 1975
Screening Fri, Sat
The Player
Robert Altman, 1992
Screening Sun
MaXXXine
Ti West, 2024
Screening Mon
Barton Fink
Joel Coen, 1991
Screening Tues
BBBC CINEMA (GALLERYGALLERY BRUNSWICK)
Closed until 2025
No screening this week
CHINATOWN CINEMA
Alien: Romulus (Chinese Sub)
Fede Álvarez, 2024
Screening Daily
Upstream
Zheng Xu, 2024
Screening Daily
Hungry Ghost Diner
Liu Yulin, 2024
Screening Sat 30
Successor
Zhang Yimou, 2024
Screening on Sat 31
CINÉ-CLUB (Carlton)
Closed for winter
No screening this week
Kneecap
Rich Peppiatt, 2023
Screening at arthouse screens and probs some multis
I Saw the TV Glow
Jane Schoenbrun, 2023
Screening at arthouse screens and probs some multis
Alien: Romulus
Fede Álvarez, 2024
Screening Daily
Strange Darling
Jacqueline Lentzou, 2024
Screening Daily
Longlegs
Graham Verchere, 2024
Screening Daily
How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies
Liu Jia, 2024Screening Daily
Kinds of Kindness
Yorgos Lanthimos, 2024
Screening Daily
La Chimera
Alice Rohrwacher, 2023
Birdeater
Jack Clark, Jim Weir, 2023
Screening Daily
Skategoat
Sarah Smith, 2024
DOGMILK DEGUSTATIONS: @ Miscellania
Coming back kinda soon
No screening week
GAY24 (Bar Flippy’s)
No screening this week
HITLIST (9 Gertrude St, Fitzroy)
Shut for now
LIDO / CLASSIC / CAMEO
Events
Check sites for rep titles
General Release
Kneecap
Rich Peppiatt, 2023
Screening at arthouse screens and probs some multis
I Saw the TV Glow
Jane Schoenbrun, 2023
Screening at arthouse screens and probs some multis
Alien: Romulus
Fede Álvarez, 2024
Screening Daily
Longlegs
Oz Perkins, 2024
Screening Daily
Birdeater
Jack Clark & Jim Weir, 2024
Screening Daily
Kinds of Kindness
Yorgos Lanthimos, 2024
Screening Daily
Maxxxine
Ti West, 2024
Screening Daily
The Bikeriders
Jeff Nichols, 2024
Screening Daily
OVA CLUB
No screening this week
THE MELBOURNE CINÉMATHÈQUE (ACMI)
Red Angel
Yasuzo Masumura, 1966
Screening Wednesday 11 Sept 7:00pm
+
A Wife Confesses
Yasuzo Masumura, 1961
Screening Wednesday 11 Sept 8:45pm
TOP OF THE HEAP (Tramway Hotel)
No screening this week
No screening this week
MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY: SCREENING IDEAS
No screening this week
PALACE BALWYN / BRIGHTON / COMO / KINO / PENTRIDGE / MOONEE PONDS / WESTGARTH
General Release
Kneecap
Rich Peppiatt, 2023
Screening at arthouse screens and probs some multis
I Saw the TV Glow
Jane Schoenbrun, 2023
Screening at arthouse screens and probs some multis
Alien: Romulus
Fede Álvarez, 2024
Screening Daily
Longlegs
Oz Perkins, 2024
Screening Daily
Birdeater
Jack Clark & Jim Weir, 2024
Screening Daily
Kinds of Kindness
Yorgos Lanthimos, 2024
Screening Daily
The Bikeriders
Jeff Nichols, 2024
Screening Daily
Birdeater
Jim Weir, 2024
Screening Daily
Longlegs
Oz Perkins, 2024
Screening Daily
No screening this week
No listings this week / click link above to see what’s on (their site too hard to navigate)
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
Tim Burton, 2024
Screening almost daily
Kneecap
Rich Peppiatt, 2023
Screening almost daily
Joan Baez: I Am a Noise
Miri Navasky, Maeve O’Boyle, Karen O’Connor, 2023
Screening Wed
UNKNOWN PLEASURES @ Thornbury Picture House
No screening this week