Blow Out

Blow Out is a 1981 American neo-noir mystery thriller film written and directed by Brian De Palma. The film stars John Travolta as Jack Terry, a movie sound effects technician from Philadelphia who, while recording sounds for a low-budget slasher film, serendipitously captures audio evidence of an assassination involving a presidential hopeful. Nancy Allen stars as Sally Bedina, a young woman involved in the crime.

Plot
While recording sound effects for a slasher flick, Jack Terri (John Travolta) stumbles upon a real-life horror: a car careening off a bridge and into a river. Jack jumps into the water and fishes out Sally (Nancy Allen) from the car, but the other passenger is already dead -- a governor intending to run for president. As Jack does some investigating of his tapes and starts a perilous romance with Sally, he enters a tangled web of conspiracy that might leave him dead.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) The idea of a mystery thriller film about a slasher murdering people during producing sound effects for a slasher flick is very chilling.
 * 2) All of the casts, including John Travolta as Jack Terry, Nancy Allen as Sally Bedini, John Lithgow as Burke, and Dennis Franz as Manny Karp gave good performances in this movie.
 * 3) Amazing, and chilling soundtrack that was performed by Pino Donaggio.
 * 4) Interesting scenes where a car loses control and off the bridge into the river, and a terrifying female scream during producing a slasher film with sound effects.
 * 5) Jack Terry is a likable and memorable character in this movie.
 * 6) Nice story and character development.
 * 7) Jack Terry and Sally Bedina share some decent chemistry together.
 * 8) Amazing firework effects during the final chase scene.
 * 9) The black and white poster looks very chilling, and creative, making it almost look like it's made for a horror-thiller film.
 * 10) Chilling cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond.
 * 11) The final chase scene where Jack Terry chases after Burke while kidnapping Sally Bedina before he stab her to death during the Labor Day event is amazing.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) The scenes where they're trying to make correct female screams can be very annoying.

Reception
Blow Out recieved positive reviews from critics, with a 84% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 49 reviews, with an average grade of 7.6/10, with the critical consensus reading "With a story inspired by Antonioni's Blow Up and a style informed by the high-gloss suspense of Hitchcock, De Palma's Blow Out is raw, politically informed, and littered with film references". Roger Ebert's four-star review in the Chicago Sun-Times noted that Blow Out "is inhabited by a real cinematic intelligence. The audience isn't condescended to...we share the excitement of figuring out how things develop and unfold, when so often the movies only need us as passive witnesses."

Trivia

 * Al Pacino was director Brian De Palma's first choice for the role of Jack Terry. When he proved unavailable John Travolta was signed, prompting a suggestion from at least one studio executive to cast Olivia Newton-John, Travolta's Grease (1978) co-star, in the role of Sally (which De Palma refused).
 * It is one of Quentin Tarantino's favorite movies.
 * The box office failure of this film greatly damaged John Travolta's career, especially for more serious roles. Ironically Quentin Tarantino's love of this film is what led him to cast John Travolta for a key part in Pulp Fiction, the movie which gave him a major career come back.
 * When John Travolta was cast in the male lead, Nancy Allen was immediately considered for the female lead.
 * John Travolta suffered from insomnia during the shoot. His lack of sleep helped him create a very moody performance and is why his character seems so downtrodden throughout the movie.

Videos
dgWfyFgEsO8 h-V-MwqBMoM sPu2hRh0d1w