Vanishing Point (1971, 1997)

1971 to the left and 1997 to the right.

Aa`ight! Not too long ago, I had the pleasure of watching Death Proof. Really cool, that one, Quentin Tarantino is a friggin genius. Anyway, during that movie they mentioned a film called Vanishing Point. I had never heard of it before, and that`s kinda strange since I love car movies. I wrote down the title, figuring I had to watch it. I sometimes do that, write down the movie titles that are mentioned in other movies. Maybe I come across something new, you know. The time passed by, and then I finally got my hands on it. Or them, to be exact, because there are two different versions of it: the good one, from 1971, starring Barry Newman, and the not so good one, from 1997, starring Viggo Mortensen. Both of them playing Kowalski, the man driving the fast car.
The newest one is an entertaining movie about driving, but the oldest is a classic and the work of a genius, both compared to the new one and a lot of other movies. The story is slight different in the two, with more of a plot in the 1997 version. The original don`t have much of a plot, really, but it doesn`t matter. It`s all about the driving.
Both of them contains a lot of fast driving, with one of the meanest american cars ever made: the 1970 Dodge Challenger.










Yes, people, this is the car that made history by being part of one of the fastest, coolest car chases ever. In the 1971 version, that is. When I get to think about it, why would someone want to re-make a movie like this anyway? It`s "perfect", leave it as it is. Why drag a good title almost all the way down in the dirt by doing a low budget re-make for tv? Doesn`t make sence, and almost makes me shed a few, brave tears.

As I said before, the 1997 version ain`t terrible, but the 1971 is better. In the "new" one, it`s like you can almost tell that they had a tight budget, you get the feeling of them trying to make the film as cheap as possible. But then again, it was made for tv, if I recall correctly. Considering that, it`s not THAT bad.

But no, people, the old one still is the best one. Watch both of them for all I care, but if you`re going to see just one, be shure to make it the 1971 version. You won`t regret it.

For your information:
The old version also got a naked chick in it, riding a motorbike in the middle of nowhere. Imagine that. Probably a hippie.

No, I`m not rolling the dice any more, you can`t roll a 5.4 on it, you know. So I`m handing out stars instead. 10 stars is maximum.

How many stars to the 1971?



And to the 1997 ? (The last one is me having a good day.)