Gone In 60 Seconds

Essay by PaperNerd ContributorCollege, Undergraduate November 2001

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Gone in 60 Seconds One of my favorite movies is Gone In 60 Seconds, a very exciting action movie about car thieves. The film stars Nicholas Cage as Randall "Memphis" Raines, Angelina Jolie as Sway, Giovanni Rebisi as Kip Raines, and Christopher Eccleston as Raymond Calitri. Memphis is a retired car booster. Sway is now a mechanic but used to be one of Memphis's partners. The plot of the story centers around Memphis Raines who is enlisted to steal fifty cars or suffer the consequences. Memphis is forced out of retirement to save his brother, to steal fifty high end cars, and to elude the police.

Memphis was a master car thief in his day. There was no car he couldn't steal in sixty seconds. Living a dangerous lifestyle, his mother asked him to change his ways before his brother, Kip, followed in his footsteps. Changing his life and moving away did not stop his brother from becoming a car booster.

He is forced back into his life of crime when he is informed by an old friend that his brother is in trouble. Kip was first hired to deliver fifty expensive cars to mobster Raymond Calitri but was unable. Calitri threatens to kill Kip unless he finds a way to obtain all fifty cars. In an attempt to save Kip's life, Memphis reunites part of his old crew to complete the impossible. His plan is to organize the theft of all fifty cars from all over Los Angeles in one night. Stealing fifty cars in a twenty-four-hour period requires elaborate schemes to be done successfully. Their first step in stealing the cars was to make a list of every car they needed. In this list, the cars were given a woman's name so they were able to talk about them in code. Memphis had to find exactly where they would be able to obtain each and every one of the cars. The Department of Motor Vehicles is used to find some of the cars 2 by hacking into their mainframe. Attempting to find many of the Ferraris, Memphis poses as a potential customer to learn the location of the most rare models. Three Mercedes on the list are virtually impossible to steal because they require laser cut keys to start the vehicle. In order to steal them, someone in the crew pays off one of the men in the service department at the Mercedes Dealership to produce copies of the keys for them. The tools they use to steal the cars are very high tech and make stealing the cars much faster. The one car that has always eluded Memphis Raines is the 1967 Shelby GT500, he has tried many times to steal this car but has never been successful. It is the last car left to steal on the list and the most challenging. En route to load this last car for shipment the police finally catch up with him.

The police are suspicious of his actions from the moment he arrives in town, because he is such a famous criminal they immediately start surveillance on him. The officer that really wants to arrest him is detective Castlebeck, who is played by Delroy Lindo. He has had the chance to bust Memphis in past years but did not. Putting him behind bars is the one thing that could make his career perfect. Castlebeck has no clue how many cars he has to steal but, he thinks Memphis will have to steal three Mercedes. They know this because Kip had already stolen all three of them before the police found their warehouse full of a few of the cars on the list. This model of Mercedes is quite rare. They find out where the car thieves obtained the first set of keys to the first three Mercedes and force the man at the dealership to call them if anyone comes back wanting more copies of the keys. Castlebeck is informed of which Mercedes the dealership made copies of, and he sets up vans at the residences of all three of the cars to catch Memphis. Memphis is extremely smart, so he takes pictures of each of the cars to help his plan run smoother. When he returns to steal the cars, he notices something different about the picture he had taken. The van in the background is now parked in a different place. Memphis now knows the police are watching these cars, so his plan has to change or he will be arrested by Castlebeck. They decide to steal the first three cars that are now at the police impound, because Kip still has the keys from the first boost. A crew member distracts the guard at the impound and they steal the cars successfully.

Memphis has one final car to steal but the police are very close. As he is stealing his dream car, the 1967 Shelby GT500, Castlebeck catches him. Memphis leads Castlebeck in a high speed pursuit all over Los Angeles. His time is almost up to get the car to Raymond Calitri, and the cops are still chasing him. While running from the police, he is stopped short of the drop off point by a traffic jam caused by a wreck. He does the only thing he can think of, he backs up and jumps the car off of a wrecker and flies over the entire accident. He arrives with the GT500 too late but stops Calitri's men from killing Kip. Castlebeck finally reaches Calitri's salvage yard, Calitri tries to shoot him, but Memphis saves his life. In return Castlebeck decides not to arrest Memphis or anyone in his crew.

Memphis shows he is a true big brother. He returns to a life that could get him arrested or killed, all to save his little brother. He even persuades his old friends to help him break the law and try to pull off a seemingly impossible scheme. He risks his life and freedom to steal fifty cars in one night. All the while, the police are on his tail just waiting to arrest him. In the end, everything turns out well, and everyone gives up their lives of crime.