Synopsis
Jack Terry is a master sound recordist who works on grade-B horror movies. Late one evening, he is recording sounds for use in his movies when he hears something unexpected through his sound equipment and records it. Curiosity gets the better of him when the media become involved, and he begins to unravel the pieces of a nefarious conspiracy. As he struggles to survive against his shadowy enemies and expose the truth, he does not know whom he can trust.
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Cast
- John TravoltaJack Terry
- Nancy AllenSally Badina
- John LithgowBurke
- Dennis FranzManny Karp
- Peter BoydenSam
- John AquinoDet. Mackey
- John McMartinLawrence Henry
- Deborah EvertonHooker
- J. Patrick McNamaraDetective at Hospital
- Roger WilsonCoed Lover
Recommendations
- 100
Chicago Sun-Times
Best of all, this movie is inhabited by a real cinematic intelligence. The audience isn't condescended to. In sequences like the one in which Travolta reconstructs a film and sound record of the accident, we're challenged and stimulated: We share the excitement of figuring out how things develop and unfold, when so often the movies only need us as passive witnesses. - 100
The Guardian
This is one of the finest films about the process of movie-making, a bleak, complex work that gives Travolta his most challenging role. - 100
Slant Magazine
Blow Out is not known as one of Brian De Palma’s horror movies, but of all his films, it’s the one that feels most like a nightmare. - 100
The New Yorker
On paper this movie, written and directed by Brian De Palma, might seem to be just a political thriller, but it has a rap intensity that makes it unlike any other political thriller...It’s a great movie. - 91
Entertainment Weekly
Deliciously twisty and twisted. - 80
The New York Times
Yet more important than anything else about Blow Out is its total, complete and utter preoccupation with film itself as a medium in which, as Mr. De Palma has said along with a number of other people, style really is content. - 80
Empire
Crammed with wonderful De Palma showboating and a wonderfully crackpot turn from John Lithgow as a right-wing loon. - 80
Time Out London
Where Antonioni's images made you think, De Palma's merely make you blink, and the baroque plot confuses as often as it frightens. Still, plenty of style, a modicum of thrills, and a suitably s(l)ick ending. Collectors of character performances will enjoy Lithgow's right-wing nut.
