# Go (1999)

### reviewed by
James Sanford

The next time you find yourself coming up short on rent day, try this: Get a few bottles of allergy medicine, head out to the local rave party and sell the tablets for $20 apiece. Chances are the kids you're selling it to will already be high and won't notice that the pills aren't doing anything except opening up their sinuses.

That's Ronna's (Sarah Polley) strategy for avoiding eviction, and it's typical of the kookiness of "Go," the second feature from director Doug Liman. Like Liman's first movie, "Swingers," "Go" is propelled by its quirks and details rather than drama; unlike the generally mellow "Swingers," however, "Go" zooms through its shaggy dog story with the same adrenalin rush that dominates its psychedelic soundtrack from master DJ BT.

If "Go" is reminiscent of Robert Altman's film "Short Cuts" (in which a couple of dozen Californians of differing social classes turn out to share common threads), it's considerably lighter in tone. How grim can things get when the closest thing the movie has to a villian is a guy who wears a Santa hat, quotes from "The Breakfast Club" and deconstructs "The Family Circus"?

This sort of project lives or dies by its casting, and Liman has done an outstanding job. Polley ("The Sweet Hereafter") and Katie Holmes ("Dawson's Creek") are endearingly earthy as Ronna and Claire, two seemingly bright young women condemned to waste their days working endless shifts at the check-out counter of a fourth-rate grocery store. To add insult to injury, in honor of the Christmas holidays, the cashiers are forced to wear "Yule Save More" buttons on their Velveeta-colored aprons.

But Ronna's life becomes a bit livelier when TV stars Adam and Zack (comedian Jay Mohr and "Party of Five's" Scott Wolf, playing amusingly against type) come through her line. They're looking to score some designer drugs before heading to a holiday rave, and, since their usual dealer Simon (Desmond Askew) is out of town, they turn to Ronna for help. She, in turn, hightails it to Todd (Timothy Olyphant), the local drug kingpin, a decision that leads to a traumatic night for all concerned.

Besides its characters, what elevates "Go" high above the typical "party picture" - such as"Can't Hardly Wait," for example - is screenwriter John August's zingy dialogue. As when a guy refuses to reveal everything about his indiscretions, warning his lover that if he does, "you will freak out and it will be drama, bad, not-funny 'Roseanne' kind of drama." As when would-be Vegas smoothies Tiny (Breckin Meyer) and Marcus (Taye Diggs) debate about race and Tiny insists it's all "a state of mind," Marcus responds by calling him "Rhythm Nation."

For a fledgling director, getting funding from a major studio on your second film often means having to compromise the qualities that originally set you apart from the crowd. The buoyant, sassy and decidedly unglossy "Go" is proof Liman has managed to avoid that trap.

    James Sanford

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