Gone in Sixty Seconds (2000)

Sometimes you don't want a masterpiece. Sometimes you don't want trauma, moral ambiguity, or two and a half hours of existential dread. Sometimes you just want a bunch of muscle cars, a killer soundtrack, and Nicolas Cage in a leather jacket surrounded by screeching tyre smoke. And when that mood hits, Gone in Sixty Seconds is right there waiting for you, engine running, ready to go.

I've got a lot of time for this film. More than I probably should, if I'm being honest. It knows exactly what it is, it commits to that completely, and it pulls it off with such swagger that you can't help but get swept up in it. That's a harder trick than it looks.

The setup is pure pulp: Memphis Raines, retired master car thief, is dragged back into the life to save his brother from a vindictive mobster. The price of that rescue? Steal fifty high-end vehicles in one night. That's your plot. That's all you're getting, and honestly, that's all you need. The dialogue is ridiculous, the character arcs are basically non-existent, and the whole thing has the structural depth of a burger wrapper. None of that matters a single bit.

What matters is the cast, and this film is stacked. Angelina Jolie turns up with dreads and a wrench and absolutely owns every frame she's in. Robert Duvall deadpans his way through the garage scenes with the quiet dignity of a man who knows exactly what kind of film he's in and is perfectly fine with it. Then there's the rogues' gallery of supporting players: Vinnie Jones doing exactly what Vinnie Jones does, Christopher Eccleston clearly relishing a villain role, Chi McBride getting laughs seemingly without trying. It's a proper ensemble of people having a great time, and that energy is infectious.

Nicolas Cage, though. Look, I love Cage. I've loved him in straight dramas, I've loved him in completely unhinged chaos like Raising Arizona, and I love him here, operating somewhere in between: just loose enough to be fun, just grounded enough to carry the emotional stakes (such as they are). He's got genuine movie star charisma, and films like this remind you of that.

The real stars, though, are the cars. Each one gets introduced like a character in its own right. Jaguars, Corvettes, GTOs, and of course Eleanor, the Shelby GT500, the crown jewel of the whole operation. The film treats these machines with genuine reverence, and that affection comes through on screen. The final heist sequence is the payoff the whole thing has been building towards: tyre smoke, perfectly timed jumps, a pulse-pounding score that blends rock, hip-hop and synth into something that feels like a time capsule of Y2K cool. It shouldn't work as well as it does. It absolutely does.

There's a version of this kind of franchise filmmaking that completely loses the plot, and I say that as someone who's watched Fast X careen into self-parody with diminishing returns. What Gone in Sixty Seconds has that a lot of its successors lack is a sense of proportion. It's big and loud and gloriously dumb, but it never mistakes spectacle for substance it doesn't have. It's not trying to be a saga. It's trying to be a great Friday night film, and it is one.

This sits comfortably alongside Con Air in that particular pantheon of late-90s and early-2000s action films that are peak cheese but executed with enough style and commitment to earn genuine affection. Both films have that same quality: they could easily have been terrible, and instead they became cult classics people still revisit twenty-odd years on. That's not an accident.

It's not smart. It's not subtle. It never pretends to be either. But as pure, uncut "turn your brain off" entertainment, the kind you put on when you want noise and speed and zero emotional labour, it's up there with the best of them. Big engines, bigger egos, and absolutely zero regrets.

Four stars. Sometimes, that's exactly what you need.

Rating: ★★★★  | Year: 2000  | Watched: 2025-08-10

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Where to watch

Watch in the UK
Stream: Disney Plus
Rent: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
Buy: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi

Watch in the US
Stream: fuboTV · YouTube TV
Rent: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Buy: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Physical: Amazon US

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Related on Movies With Macca

More with Nicolas Cage: Con Air (1997) · Raising Arizona (1987)
More from the 2000s: Kirikou and the Wild Beasts (2005) · Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004) · Daredevil (2003) · Apocalypto (2006)
More action: A Better Tomorrow (1986) · The General (1926) · Hand of Death (1976) · Daredevil (2003)
More crime: A Better Tomorrow (1986) · Angst (1983) · Stolen Face (1952) · Cairo Station (1958)