Excellent but underrated film

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

"Vanishing Point" is one of the hailed movies that didn't lived up to my expectations. Might have been the "Drive" of its era (silent hero/car chases/improbable tasks) but it's difficult to form some sort of engage or find it exciting or appealing. I liked for plenty of good reasons, it's quite simple and reflects a lot about its era, one of those babies from the 1960's-1970's counter-culture that came after "Easy Rider" - guess you can say this is an "Easy Rider" on four wheels, with its rejection of conservative values and living like to the maximum on the fastlane. But it's not so much of a great film. It's just good and have some fun on the way. Our hero is Kowalski (Barry Newman) and his mission is to deliver a beautiful white car (the film's actual lead) an 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T crossing a few states in a matter of days, a bet he makes with a friend. He's a qualified driver and will break all of the speeding limits, rules and get the police chasing him all the way, and he'll also face some other obstacles and some good company on the way, such as a snake charmer (Dean Jagger, great) and his oniscient guardian angel, a blind radio host who'll guide through the roads telling him about possible problems to come and to which ways he must lead (brilliantly played by Cleavon Little). He's rooting for Kowalski just as much as many other simple folks from the many towns he crosses. His only enemy is really the establishment, the authorities following his steps and getting lots of dirt thrown at their faces. The pros about "Vanishing": the car chases and the stunts are excellent, first rate with great editing work and a fantastic cinematography by the always brilliant John A. Alonzo; the action sequences are of the most pure quality - the moments in between sometimes work, other times are just a snooze fest that had kept me rewinding to see what I had missed. The pacing is strange, it flows almost like a silent film (a nice touch and very unusal at the time - except the long chase in the classic "The French Connection" where all you hear and the sound of the car engine); the memorable lead character is beautiful to look at it, and I mean the car. It's a killing machine. The movie feels as being just an action with no political context but there are plenty of them hidden there and I liked them all because their were real, relevant for its time, not to mention about a certain premonition of thrilling things to come. It's a lot more about the counter-culture or challenging the anti-establishment; it's also about giving a message. "Vanishing Point" tells about racial tension, it's very politically incorrect when it comes to that issue (and also the gay robbers - "The Celluloid Closet" took that scene way out of context) but it's all good because of that. Let's take Kowalski and his actions being praised and getting support from everyone, after all the only crime of his is breaking speeding limits and making some cops fall from their bikes. That's the law he's breaking, yet people like him, calling the last American hero when his real mission was just conquering the impossible with almost no harm done and winning his bet. He has to use of wrongful acts to do his job but he does it. I think of him being a prescient of Daniel Ellsberg and the leaking of the Pentagon Papers (not sure which came first: movie or leaking). Unconventional methods but had to be done in order to defy what was wrong with the Nixon administration and the previous ones concerning Vietnam War. To the American public he could be a hero or an anti-hero, when his name wasn't revealed to the public and the papers were getting published all around. Both Kowalski and Ellsberg were noble silent man with causes they considered important; not to mention both were part of the establishment and later on became the opposite (though delivering a car to whom we never know is kinda strange. At least gives us some urgency on why that car is important and to whom it is important). That's just my reading of this film. Since the movie isn't perfect here comes the blows. Newman isn't an interesting lead, a more established name would benefit the movie in several ways. He doesn't have charisma, only a bit of cool presence and knows how to keep the character's mystery going on. I never found that Kowalski had a true motive for all the running. The movie fails in giving us urgency about his mission, it's all about racing against time, run away from the cops and we don't even have a good antagonist sheriff or police officer (I picture Bruce Dern or some veteran actor playing some of those roles to make us view both sides of the duel). Therefore, the drama is quite shallow, lacking in power and losing in effectiveness. All I can say is that had it been a comedy, it'd be hilarious and far more interesting (I only have the ending in mind). And the ending we've got disappointed big time but it's something that was common during Nixon era (counter-culture must not conquer all). Weighing down in the balance, there's merits but they're far from reaching their ultimate potential. Fun to watch but it's not that brilliant. Slightly overrated. A cool movie to watch with your friends, specially the ones who love speed, car chases, crazy situations or a naked woman riding on a bike. 6/10P.S.: Though not a fan, Audioslave's clip "Show me How to Live" was a perfect homage to the film.

Very good, and surprisingly so. I only watched this because it gets many reverential references in Quentin Tarantino's "Death Proof". Expected it to be nothing more than a revhead movie, but it is far better than that.More like Easy Rider on four wheels. A movie about freedom and individuality. Good script, but it is the direction and the setting that makes this movie great. Richard Sarafian sketches Kowalski's character through flashbacks and delivered information, showing you why he is doing what he is doing. The ending is perfect.Barry Newman hardly had much dialogue, but in playing Kowalski he defined anti-authoritarian freedom-loving figures forever.

Much has been written about this movie, so the story is well known. The main character is a man known as Kowalski who delivers cars for a living. He has done other things though. He was a Vietnam veteran, a former car and bike racing driver and an ex cop, but in the film he collects a car on a Friday night in Colorado to drive it back to San Francisco, California, in 15 hours. ( a journey of some 1200 miles ).Given the car he is driving, a 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T 440ci V8 with a 4 speed manual transmission, which is also allegedly " hopped up to over 160 ", it is technically achievable, however, as he will be driving mainly on the back roads, no one seems to think he can do it. To help him, he visits a friend at the start and take a supply of speed and then gets on his way. And then the fun begins.So what is the movie really about?....Well, if you read all the other comments, and I recommend you do, you will see the main points of the plot and events, etc, so I wont be repeating these here, but to me, none of them get to the real raison d'etre of Kowalski and the movie.You first have to look at the time period in the US in 1970/71. The Vietnam war was still ongoing and by then the protest against it was very wide spread. In addition, there was still a very strong racism element and the US was in effect a Police state, only much more so than today.Then there was the Muscle care era which was at its peak in 1970/71, but by 1973, it was all but dead as emission laws made many of the big block engines illegal. The 70 Dodge Challenger R/T 440 ci V8 was one of the fastest in its day and with a 4 speed manual transmission was good for around 375 bhp in stock form, however, we are told that it is hopped up to do over 160 mph, ( standard was around 140 mph ) although no details of how it is tuned are given other than a couple of cops saying it is allegedly supercharged.Then he have Kowalski himself. On face value it would seem he has been a failure throughout his life ( well the bits we get to see in flash back ), but is he really?....No. The way he drives the Dodge shows you that he is in a different league to the cops and like all racing drivers, instead of slowing down, he changes down and accelerates to even faster speeds, so he isn't simply a good driver, he is a great driver. One of the very best.He doesn't just drive the car, he becomes part of it and it becomes part of him. He knows that whenever he changes down a gear or two, he has rocket like acceleration that will get him out of trouble and when the roads get closed off, he simply takes it out into the desert. As Super soul says, Kowalski is one of the last great American hero's and that is what the movie is really about.It is an epitaph to the last of the real hero's, Kowalski, the last of the real muscle cars and the last blast of a freedom that the police are trying to destroy. Kowalski knows that, just like the muscle car, his time has come and gone, so he pushes himself on an almost impossible journey that he knows will end in his death. After all, what is there to live for. Nothing except the speed and the race, and so at the end we see him smash into two bulldozers rather than surrender.On face value, this seems madness. He could easily stop and although he might be imprisoned for a while ( or maybe not as he hadn't really done anything wrong ), he would get to drive again, but for Kowalski its not so simplistic. He is on a one way journey and this is evident by the flash backs to the past events in his life. We see him as a racing car driver, a bike racer, when he was a cop and the death of his beloved. He whole life story is laid out along the road, so it is obvious that death is the only destination. This is further confirmed when we see the naked chick shows him all the news stories she has collected about him long before this journey. Its like she is an Angel saying, this was your life Kowalski.There is also the scene not in the US versions ), where he picks up a female hitchhiker ( death ) who spends the night with him and then mysteriously disappears before he wakes. Kowalski knows its coming, but rather than fear it, he drives into the next world at maximum speed, smiling and with him dies the last of the great muscle cars.Whether you agree with my synopsis or not, this is one of the great movies of all time and if you do nothing else in your life, you have to see this film and preferably on a big screen with surround sound.

I'll admit I wasn't sure quite what to make of this one when I first saw it. I had to view it more than once, and other user reviews actually gave me some insight (thanks everybody). What drew me to Vanishing Point in the first place was that it was a road flick featuring a fast car..and I LOVE movies with fast cars.The premise at the beginning seems simple enough. Kowalski (Barry Newman) is a speed freak (as in drugs AND driving) who makes his living delivering cars. He's just arrived back in Denver, to the place that employs him, after a delivery, and wants to head right back out on the road again to deliver a Dodge Challenger to San Francisco. His boss pleads with him to get some rest, as does his drug dealer, but Kowalski is determined. He bets his dealer the price of the speed he just bought that he can deliver the car in 15 hours (I figured it up..he would have to average 84.5 MPH with NO stops if he drove in a straight line).Where the movie gets interesting..and disturbing..is when it gets into WHY Kowalski is so determined to go on this ride. While he's tearing down the roadway in that waaay cool white Challenger, with police hot on his tail, we see flashes of his past, including his time as a war hero in Vietnam, his stint as a police officer who stops his partner from raping a teenage girl they'd picked up; also we see that for a time he raced cars and motorcycles (crashing more than once), and he even spent a period of time as a hippie/counterculture type (where he watched his girlfriend drown in the ocean). Two dynamics emerge: First, and this was brought up in another review, Kowalski is a guy who couldn't fit in anywhere, be it the "establishment" or the "counterculture." Second, and more important, in the flashbacks we see one bad thing after another happen to him, regardless of what he was doing or who he was with. This is what his life has come down to, and it's as if this pedal-to-the-metal trip to SF, come hell or high water, is all he has left.I would be remiss if I didn't mention the other main player in this, a blind disc jockey who goes by "Super Soul" (Cleavon Little in what may be the finest performance of his career). Super Soul feels an instant connection with Kowalski..calling him "the last American hero" as he races from police on his trek. In between songs he talks to Kowalski over the airwaves as if he can sense what the doomed driver is thinking. In the midst of this a bunch of redneck bullies break into the radio station and give Super Soul a horrific beating, and the movie doesn't really explain why. Maybe it's because they didn't like what Kowalski was doing and Super Soul being sympathetic to him, aggravated by the fact that they already hated Super Soul because he was black.This movie has been compared, erroneously in my opinion, to Easy Rider. Whereas the latter is clearly a movie centering on the 60s counterculture, Vanishing Point is a character study, both of Kowalski and Super Soul, two misfits..yet both honorable and decent men(perhaps that's what makes them misfits)..who seem doomed to never really belong anywhere. It's also a sort of requiem for the days gone by for fast cars and open roads in America. This is not a pleasant movie..it's dark, depressing and surreal..but interesting. And Kowalski drives one VERY cool..and fast..car.