Vanishing Point Blu-ray Edition
Vanishing Point follows Kowalski as he drives from Colorado to San Francisco to deliver a car and thwarts the police till the end.
Film making 18/25
Cinematography 18/25
Audio 18/25
Bonus Features 18/25
Total 72/100
Vanishing Point Stars Barry Newman as an ex military and ex police officer who now drives cars for a delivery service but ends up on the wrong side of the law. In a several state police chase Kowalski, played by Barry Newman, eludes police time and again with help from fellow scruffy citizens on his car chase through the desert south west.
Throughout Vanishing Point we are given glimpses into the life of Kowalski and the reasoning’s behind his suddenly over the top erratic behavior that brings on the massive car chase. Kowalski works for Argo’s Car Delivery Service in Denver Colorado and is supposed to deliver a 1970 Dodge Challenger to San Francisco by Monday and will stop at nothing to do it.
After a small pit stop on the way at the beginning for some speed from a friend and he’s off on a police chase for the ride of his life. We see a few flash back scenes when he used to race motorcycles and cars at tracks as well as some activity while he was a police officer that starts an explanation of why he is no longer a cop.
The film does a lot of flashbacks with him remembering past events that fill in the times of one long chase and does give the film some explanation but it is not enough to keep the film together. Vanishing Point is just short of making a great film because it lacks something to hook you into the lead character.
You can get an idea of why he flaunts the law and refuses to pull over for police but he also has ample opportunity to elude them and make a clean getaway but he must meet his end. He runs headlong into a couple of bulldozers after eluding police across several states and kills himself in a fiery explosion.
Somehow this is supposed to give meaning or something else to his life but we are not given enough of a look into his life, mostly a quick glimpse to understand why. I think this is a real shame as they could have approached the films story a bit better and really given a reason for his suicide by giving more of a look into his past instead of the quick glimpses the flashbacks give us.
Vanishing point does not do enough as an entertaining film and just misses being a great movie in my opinion but others may like it. The film has a lot of great music from the period and the Blu-ray edition highlights this in the great audio and very good video in high definition but the audio is the real standout in the film.
The Blu-ray edition contains the United States version of the film as well as the United Kingdom version on the single disc. The United States release contains audio commentary by director Richard Sarafian, D-Box motion control for players with that capability as well as a silly dashboard addition to the film.
The dashboard feature is an additional add-on during the film that allows you to see the location of Kowalski while in the movie, his speed when driving and other information.
It is actually a virtual dashboard that fills almost half the screen so you have this dashboard of his car in the way while he’s running from the police again and again.
There is also an add-on track to the film that pops up during the movie that give added content about the police, vehicles of the 1970’s and other information about the era and things used in the film. This is actually a nice feature with a lot of interesting information unlike the virtual dashboard that is just in the way.
The United Kingdom version contains a lot of extras including the commentary track, a few bonus look back features and TV spots about the film as well as a quick piece about the 1970 Challenger. The challenger piece is an interactive look at the car and tells about various aspects of the car in a virtual view.
In all you get the two versions of the film that differs by only about 5 minutes so they are both about the same but there are plenty of additional features to round out the film. Vanishing Point seems more like a police chase fans kind of movie and a classic older film that is pretty good but just missing great, it’s worth watching at least once but not much more in my opinion.