Cage Match: Gone in 60 Seconds (2000)

Cage leads an overqualified cast in Jerry Bruckheimer’s glossy, dumb fun car-heist flick “Gone in 60 Seconds”

TL;DR: Get in, bitches. We’re going joyriding with this Jerry Bruckheimer joint stuffed with fast cars, a stacked cast, and Nicolas Cage whispering sweet nothings to a ’67 Shelby Mustang named Eleanor. It’s dumb, it’s loud, and it’s far from perfect. And the target audience won’t give a damn. 

IN THIS CORNER: KELLY MINTZER

The Lowdown 

I tripped on the corner of 42nd Street during my daily run. I have a big black and blue mark on my knee, and I left a reasonable amount of palm skin on the pavement. That was the second most painful thing I felt today. The first was the pain of watching Gone in 60 Seconds.

To be clear, it was never likely that I would like this movie. I saw it in theaters when I was 14. We took my dad to see it for either Father’s Day or his birthday; I can’t remember which one anymore, and it certainly doesn’t matter.

My only recollection of it until this rewatch was… “yeah, that’s a middle-aged dad movie.” I stand by it, provided the middle-aged dads in question drink too much Code-Red Mountain Dew and believe in their hearts that they’re still cool, despite the reality that they, like all of us, are inching closer to Grandpa Simpson territory.

Gone in 60 Seconds is very clearly some dude’s idea of a “cool” movie.

I found nothing about this engaging. It is everything I hate in a movie. It’s deeply dumb, none of the characters are likable, the stakes don’t matter to me (I usually find Giovanni Ribisi pretty charming, but in this, meh, I did not care for him).

Nic Cage plays a character impossibly named Memphis Raines, which fuck you movie, that’s a stupid fucking name, who needs to steal a bunch of cars in a short period of time to save his dumb ass brother.

Ok. So listen, this isn’t a great gambit, BUT heist movies have thrived on thinner gruel. The fun of Ocean’s 11 or the unexpectedly great Logan Lucky generally manifests in two ways: 1. The getting the crew together sequence, and 2. The magic of watching the heist unfold. Gone in 60 Seconds basically Kool-Aid Man’s its way through these things. No art, no finesse, no good jokes.

But damn, that cast. They must have owed Jerry Bruckheimer favors because, to a man, they’re all better than this stupid movie. 

I wonder if the original is great. I think there MUST have been something here that made a filmmaker want to revamp it. But based on the remake, I have no desire to see it. 

The Cage Factor: 

I know, based on the prior full page of complaining, it probably seems a given that this is a Rat in a Cage, but it’s actually not so simple. What is the metric for our designation here? The MOVIE itself is garbage, but is that what we use to make our ruling, or is it our guy’s performance? Because I don’t find Nic Cage uncharming in this.

It’s light years from my favorite Cage performance, but for example, compared to last week’s performance, I found him likable enough in this. Look, this is a movie with an audience. Cool dads. You know who you are, fellas. We may not have much in common, but I see you, and you should never be ashamed of your taste in movies, even if it is the celluloid equivalent of a Slim Jim.

So what the hell, I’m feeling generous; Cautious Cage. Watch it if it’s your jam, Nic’s fine in it. I hate it.

AND IN THIS CORNER: STEPHANIE MALONE

The Lowdown 

Look, you should know exactly what to expect before you put this car into gear. Gone in 60 Seconds is a quintessential guilty pleasure—the kind of film the critic in me wants to skewer, but the fan in me can’t help but appreciate on some level.

It’s a glossy, overcaffeinated Bruckheimer joint, as shallow in substance as it is sizzling with style. The soundtrack slaps. The editing is frenetic. The cast is ridiculously overqualified. And the action scenes are high-octane insanity. It’s popcorn entertainment through and through.

The plot? Practically non-existent. Cage’s Memphis Raines is dragged out of retirement for—what else?—“one last job.” The mission: steal 50 cars in a single night to save his younger brother (Giovanni Ribisi) from a cartoonishly evil gangster.

It’s a premise thinner than a racing stripe, but it does the job of getting us from chase to chase. The pacing is strangely sluggish for a film about a 24-hour heist, and the car theft montage somehow feels rushed in comparison to the lengthy setup. But when the engines finally roar, Gone in 60 Seconds finds its groove.

The ensemble cast is stacked. We’ve got Robert Duvall lending gravitas, Angelina Jolie rocking platinum dreadlocks and leather pants (and not much else in the way of characterization), plus a rogue’s gallery of recognizable faces—Timothy Olyphant (swoon), Scott Caan, Delroy Lindo, James Duval, Vinnie Jones. The chemistry among the team is undeniable, even if the script barely gives them arcs to play with.

But the real star here is the cars, if that’s what revs your engine. Bruckheimer and director Dominic Sena treat them like deities, lovingly lingering on chrome curves and snarling engines.

The most famous of the bunch is “Eleanor,” a 1967 Shelby GT500 Mustang that steals the movie outright. The climactic chase scene, Cage behind the wheel of Eleanor with cops in hot pursuit, is pure cinematic adrenaline.

It’s the kind of set piece that just might make you forget the rest of the film was pure cinematic fluff.

Critics at the time weren’t impressed, and honestly, who could blame them? The movie is formulaic, nonsensical, and dripping in testosterone. Duh. But audiences made it another Bruckheimer blockbuster. If you love cars and big dumb spectacle, it’s catnip. Gone in 60 Seconds is the cinematic equivalent of cracking open a beer with your bros and watching stuff blow up.

It’s not a masterpiece, but it doesn’t need to be. It knows exactly what it is: a flashy summer blockbuster with just enough sincerity about family and loyalty to keep the heart pumping alongside the nitrous.

The Cage Factor:

As Randall “Memphis” Raines, Cage brings a strange cocktail of cool restraint and sudden eccentric flourishes. He’s nowhere near his most unhinged, but he’s also not phoning it in. Memphis reveres cars with an almost spiritual intensity, and Cage leans into that, turning what could have been a generic action hero into a guy who actually seems like he’d whisper sweet nothings to a Mustang. (And yes, he did much of his own stunt driving, because of course he did.)

The performance is pure Cage in its idiosyncrasies: the way he handles dialogue like it’s poetry about pistons, the bizarre pre-heist pep talk where he awkwardly dances and purrs, “Let’s ride.” These are the little touches that make Memphis more than a stock character.

Is it one of Cage’s iconic roles? Not really. Compared to The Rock, Con Air, and Face/Off, this is a lighter, less defining entry in his action-hero era. It doesn’t cement his legend, but it does showcase his ability to inject personality into an otherwise boilerplate blockbuster. For Cage fans, it’s an enjoyable middle-tier performance.

It’s not essential, but it’s certainly more fun than most actors could’ve wrung out of the role.