Stone\u2019s decision to make a small indie-styled flick in the desert was inspired, but it\u2019s also a film whose precise genre is hard to peg down, especially for 1997 critics. Fans arguably discovered U-Turn <\/strong>on home video (not uncommon among modern noir) and slowly savored its brew, leavening a box office dud to a kind of batshit crazy hybrid.<\/p>\n Penn’s debt-ridden gambler isn’t a nice guy nor a moral guy, but the battered loser is compelling because he’s also the most normal person in a desert shithole called Superior. There\u2019s also something disheartening & deeply affecting (at least among car fans) when he finds his lone mode of escape, a gorgeous red Mustang, resting on jacks with its innards yanked out for what\u2019s supposed to be a straight radiator hose replacement.<\/p>\n It\u2019s the first of several disastrous events that make it clear he will never<\/em> leave this hell-hole; even if he dies in the process, he\u2019ll become sinewy vulture kibble before the police get wind of what\u2019s been seething in the crummy town and discover his cadaver.<\/p>\n U-Turn<\/strong> is also a desert noir, small sub-category where the expansive, cruel terrain seems to drive locals mad in annual increments, but turns foreigners fully nuts within days because their precious suburban DNA isn\u2019t attuned to the nuances of deceit, and stewing in the heat and boredom of an action-free town (or as friends would call a small pocket in the middle of nowhere, “Bumblefuck”).<\/p>\n In the U-Turn<\/strong>\u00a0review, I reference other desert-set noirs from the 1990s, and among earlier 1950s entries worth seeking out are Allan Dwan\u2019s weird The River\u2019s Edge<\/a><\/strong> (1957) with pouty Debra Paget, earnest Anthony Quinn, and scumbag Ray Milland; and perhaps my all-time favourite, Roy Ward Baker\u2019s 3D desert noir Inferno<\/a><\/strong> (1953), a taut little gem starring Robert Ryan as a rich man left broken and stranded in the desert to die while his deceitful wife waits for circling vultures to signal his estate is poised to pass into her greedy palms.<\/p>\n![\"U-Turn1997_BR\"](\"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/U-Turn1997_BR.jpg\")
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