All images are property of Sony Pictures Entertainment.
1999. Not, in my opinion, the single greatest year of the 90s, but an interesting year in pop culture movies. We were facing down the new century, Conan O’Brien’s “In the Year 2000” joke was primed nearly every night and millennial gray on the horizon as our mainstream movies were popped less color and more muted.
A few indie (leaning) movies carried the dark comedy featuring color torch - Jawbreaker, 200 Cigarettes, Go - but were also slow-burn hits. None of these were money in ticket sales, but all found themselves in the “CULT” section of Amoeba Music’s second floor with the occasional midnight screenings and double-features, though for a long time you couldn’t find 200 Cigarettes, the VHS was mid-rare and the DVD even more-so.
Case in point, the biggest movie of 1999 was The Matrix. Amazing movie, absolute game changer, but also a sign of the tides changing. 1999 was the last time we saw movie posters with distinctive colors and unique layouts. In the 2000s certain layouts were adopted and colors approved for the mass produced posters sent to movie theaters.
Go is a Christmas movie if Die Hard is a Christmas movie. It’s nontraditional, but on point if you’ve ever been twenty-something spending the holidays in LA instead of your midwest family home. The spec script is available to read (thank you, John August), which is fairly close to what was executed except the ending. The theatrical ending is far superior, but in reading it’s apparent this isn’t mean to be the really real ending.
Go is a Christmas movie if Die Hard is a Christmas movie. It’s nontraditional, but on point if you’ve ever been twenty-something spending the holidays in LA instead of your midwest family home. The spec script is available to read (thank you, John August), which is fairly close to what was executed except the ending. The theatrical ending is far superior, but in reading it’s apparent this isn’t mean to be the really real ending.
So let’s get into it.
Go is three vignetted stories woven together organically through one rinky dink dealer who gets his shift covered so he can go to Vegas and thus igniting the whole movie.
This movie works the way all independent movies should with the fluidity and passion only a mildly chaotic director holds. Doug Liman is known to have dipped mid-shoot in the middle of the ocean to swim back to shore for a meeting on another project more than once. He’s a risk taker and stated his agent didn’t want him to do Go, but he didn’t want the big budget studio movie; he was attracted to the challenge of Go. Knowing now he ran guerrilla style through LA, stealing shots (shooting without a permit), it explains choices made that would’ve resulted in a totally different movie if they had permission.
Case in point - when Ronna and Claire are standing outside Todd’s apartment, the long shot and anxious tension spitting lines is most likely due to a risk of getting shut down, but works because Ronna is jumping the “evolutionary drug food chain”, she’s nervous and Claire is the morally good person standing outside a drug dealer’s apartment.
Truly, Doug Liman is an unsung legend. Almost thirty years later we still talk about Swingers and Go; twenty years later we’re talking about The O.C., which Liman directed the first episodes that hooked everyone.
The characters live and breathe on their own. The casting is perfection. Taye Diggs is incredible, he is Marcus as Desmond Askew is Simon. Sarah Polley was reluctant to give the script attention, but her desire to be in dramatic roles is what makes Ronna relatable and real.
Common screenwriting advice will tell you “don’t use pop culture references”, but Go has just the right amount of pop culture references intermingling with the fashion and rave culture to nail it down as a 90s time capsule. Case in point, listen to the soundtrack.
I haven’t touched the story and why it works. Go is a special case because the vignettes aren’t like what we’d experienced before. Pulp Fiction is a non-linear story, but isn’t near the same (growing up is realizing Pulp Fiction is Tarantino’s best and he should’ve never let go of Roger Avery). For a mainstream example of why Go is iconic, it inspired the The Simpsons episode “Trilogy of Error”.
Go’s stories weave together with the base being the grocery store where Ronna, Claire, Mannie, and Simon work. The catalyst is simple - Ronna is getting evicted, Simon wants to join his friends on a Vegas trip and offers Ronna his shift. Adam and Zack show up to buy X from Simon, but Ronna is here. She’s in no position to say no to money, so she does an drug food chain leap, while Simon’s in Vegas to deal with the infamous Todd Gaines. Turns out Adam and Zack are a couple doing the deal for the cops to clear themselves, Ronna flushes the X, and rips off Todd. Adam and Zack reluctantly join the cop for dinner with his wife in a swingers vibe, but turns out the “open to new things” was a recruitment attempt for “Confederated Products'“, a knock-off of Amway… they’re totally different products. Meanwhile in Vegas, poor choices at the buffet, Marcus’ fabulous mustard yellow blazer that resembles casino staff, and Simon’s grabby hands at The Boom Room lead to escaping Vegas instead of exiting peacefully.
The ending fits in a box tied tight with a red bow, and the name tag “from Xerxes”. After the whole experience of guns, drugs, and raves Ronna and Claire are walking around the deserted rave warehouse parking lot looking for Mannie, who is still hiding where Ronna left him, albeit slightly less high. Claire finds the car keys in a puddle and they get in. A moment of peace, taking in the sweet moment you realize everyone survived when Mannie leans in from the back to say “So, what are we doing for New Year’s?”
Having lived my twenties and early thirties in Los Angeles, Go reads as a love letter to the city. “Don’t go 818 on me”, a Christmas themed rave Mary X-mas Super Fest, Vegas, Simon proposing “we can be in Mexico in two hours, I call Baja”, then Todd giving directions to Simon’s apartment to The Boom Room guys “but there’s a lot of construction on La Cienega, so you might just want to take Fairfax”. The closing scene is just icing for everyone who’s lived that night life.
All right, time for the awards.
Best dressed goes to Marcus because that man looked fly, I don’t care what anyone says or that he was dressed like the valet / bathroom attendant.
Runner up is Ronna for her 90s grungy rave girl fit.
Honorable mention - Todd Gaines.
Best quote goes to Todd Gaines - “This is the real thing. Pharmaceutical grade, not that herbal crunchy rave bullshit.”
Runner up was hard to place, but because it’s still so relatable, Ronna with “With twenty dollars leftover, maybe I’ll start a savings account.”
Best moment… can’t I just say the whole movie? Just kidding, but seriously it’s a tie between Ronna selling the high school kids allergy pills in their parents minivan at the rave and every scene with William Fichtner.
We don’t see comedies like this anymore. Subtle, dark, and absurd. Bring back the 90 minute movie! Make screenwriters be better with their choices and time! Or, ya know, don’t. The cult classic section will always be there.