Blow Out details
| Formats: | 18 DVD, Blu-ray |
|---|---|
| Starring: | John Travolta, Nancy Allen, John Lithgow, Dennis Franz, John Aquino, Peter Boyden, Curt May, John McMartin, Deborah Everton, J. Patrick Mcnamara |
| Director: | Brian De Palma |
| Genres: | Drama - General, Thriller - Crime |
| Studio: | MGM ENTERTAINMENT |
| Name | Discs | |
|---|---|---|
Blow Out |
18 Feature |
DVD Information
| Run time: | 1 hour 48 minutes |
|---|---|
| Rental release: | 29 Apr 2002 |
| Main languages: | English |
| Dubbed: | German, French, Spanish, Italian |
| Hearing impaired subtitles: | English, German |
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Most helpful review
One of the best from both De Palma and Travolta
By Philip Concannon from London , 14 Aug 2004[Highly rated reviewer]
Brian De Palma's stylish thriller stars John Travolta as Jack, a sound designer for cheesy B-Movies. One night, when Jack is out recording sounds, he witnesses a car crashing off the road and into the river. Jack manages to save the girl inside, a prostitute named Sally(Nancy Allen), but the politician in the car is dead. The authorities thank Jack for his efforts and close the case as a tragic accident, but Jack's recording tells another story...
The career of Brian De Palma is one of the most maddeningly uneven in cinema. He is capable of stunning moments of brilliance but is equally likely to produce something laughably inept, often within the same film, sometimes within the same scene. 'Blow Out' is one of his most balanced and satisfying to date. The reason for this is De Palma's visual trickery is anchored by a well-formed and deceptively simple screenplay, unlike most of his films where style rules over substance.
De Palma has never hid his influences and here he steals liberally from Antonioni's 'Blow Up', Coppola's magnificent 'The Conversation' as well as the usual Hitchcock references. But De Palma puts his unique spin on the material with a couple of bravura sequences, the witty opening shot and Jack's analysing of the sounds on his tape are two particular highlights, and a wry sense of humour throughout. There's an amusing subplot involving a director's attempt to find a perfect scream for his slasher movie, which dovetails nicely with the main storyline at the superb climax.
The icing on the cake is the superb cast, particularly Travolta in one of his best roles. Nancy Allen makes more of her character than the script gives her and there's a couple of sleazy roles for John Lithgow and Dennis Franz. It's a slick, compelling thriller that De Palma looks unlikely to match. His recent pictures are a pale imitation but 'Blow Up' is a reminder of how good his films can be.- Was this review helpful to you?
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All reviews
(18)Unlikely Story Well Directed
By Cato (703 reviews) from Lydbury North , 03 Jul 2012This film seemed so old fashioned, especially as the main character's work involved such a lot of outdated technology, the results of which could have been produced on a computer these days. Brian De Palma directed the film better than the plot which he'd constructed, which at times presented difficulties for the viewer to get, especially as all the women seemed to sport Afro hairstyles. Travolta gave a grown up performance as the sound engineer who discovers things don't add up on his tapes. Some good action scenes, but in the end it was all a highly unlikely story.- Was this review helpful to you?
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an ok film
By cheesekake (1282 reviews) from uk , 02 Mar 2012this film was ok, but a little slow in places, really didn't do justice to travoltas career but then again this was an early film and he did get better- Was this review helpful to you?
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Decent Travolta Film
By a customer from Sheffield , 21 Mar 2010A good performance from Travolta here I thought and also Nancy Allen. This film looks so dated now though. I thought it would be fun to watch on my surround sound laptop with the headphones on for maximum effect.- Was this review helpful to you?
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Inflated?
By a customer from London , 10 Dec 2008It's all been done before, and often with more intensity, but even then this technologically- dated movie is still a pretty good ride, Travolta is fine, the rest of the cast are a little weak. Enjoyable but mostly done by numbers!- Was this review helpful to you?
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Travolta with big headphones
By Woody1 (2 reviews) from Motherwell , 19 Jul 2007Pretty enjoyable paranoid thriller and a bit of a departure at the the time for John Travolta. Interesting idea for the premise and a pretty shocking ending.
John Lithgow is excellent as the 'baddie' as always.
It's on TV quite a lot now, so you might want to catch it there.- Was this review helpful to you?
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