Synopsis
When Bobby's car breaks down in the desert while on the run from some of the bookies who have already taken two of his fingers, he becomes trapped in the nearby small town where the people are stranger than anyone he's encountered. After becoming involved with a young married woman, her husband hires Bobby to kill her. Later, she hires Bobby to kill the husband.
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Cast
- Sean PennBobby Cooper
- Nick NolteJake McKenna
- Jennifer LopezGrace McKenna
- Joaquin PhoenixToby N. Tucker
- Claire DanesJenny
- Powers BootheSheriff Virgil Potter
- Billy Bob ThorntonDarrell
- Jon VoightBlind Man
- Abraham BenrubiBiker #1
- Richard RutowskiBiker #2
Recommendations
- 80
The New York Times
However simply he approaches this familiar milieu, Mr. Stone winds up treating his story's sin-soaked connivers the way Francis Ford Coppola treated vampires. Neither of them is really capable of anything plain. - 78
Austin Chronicle
Yet for all its unmistakable visual trademarks (hypersaturated colors; mad-scientist tinkering with film stocks and editing technique; sudden presentation of enigmatic, troubling images), this is also the most radical departure Stone has ever made in terms of basic sensibilities. - 75
ReelViews
Yet, although Stone has clearly made this motion picture with his tongue planted firmly in his cheek, he nevertheless manages to capture all of the tension and mystery necessary to hold the viewer's interest. - 75
San Francisco Examiner
The standard noir trappings are here: the femme fatale, double-crossing, fatalism, broken dreams, innocence betrayed and the rest of it. But Stone pushes it all so far and so relentlessly that it becomes absurdist comedy. - 70
Los Angeles Times
The latest in an unending series of bleakly comic, nihilistic neo-noirs to reach the screen, U-Turn's story of a bad day in an Arizona hell invests a lot of skill and style in a trifling tale. So it manages to sporadically amuse even while it's wasting your time. - 60
Salon
There's no overt message in this fatuous montage of crowd-pleasing brutality, just double and triple crosses, gory shoot-outs set to ironically cheerful Peggy Lee songs and tons of horrific, technicolor Americana. - 50
San Francisco Chronicle
It demonstrates a filmmaker in complete command of his craft and with little control over his impulses. - 40
Washington Post
U-Turn is, for a while, darkly amusing. But along comes the second hour, which insults you for even partially succumbing to the first.
