Go (1999) was Doug Liman’s directorial follow-up to Swingers, one of my favorite films of all time. It stars Sarah Polley, Katie Holmes, Jay Mohr, Taye Diggs, Scott Wolfe, Timothy Olyphant, and basically any other young up-and-coming star that 90s Hollywood had to offer. Screenwriter John August follows a Pulp Fiction-style, three-story plot line  following four main characters that interact with one another in a highly entertaining fashion. I watched it on Crackle.

The three “tales” of Go all take place on Christmas Eve. Story #1 centers around Ronna (Sarah Polley), a grocery store checkout clerk who can’t pay her rent and is trying to earn extra cash to keep from being evicted. At the tail end of her 20+ hour shift, Adam and Zack (Scott Wolfe & Jay Mohr – we’ll get back to them in a minute) approach Ronna about buying some ecstasy. You see, they usually buy from Ronna’s coworker Simon, (Desmond Askew in an incredible performance – I’ve never seen him in anything else) but she took his shift so he could go to Vegas for the weekend. Ronna agrees to try and find them some drugs; she figures it’ll be an easy way for her to get the rent money she so desperately needs. Ronna attempts to do this by bypassing the middleman and going directly to Simon’s dealer, Todd Gaines (Timothy Olyphant).

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxgfSDgHGYw]
Story #2 is my favorite of the film, and somewhat simpler to boil down: is follows the misadventures of Simon and his friends on their trip to Vegas. I’m not even going to describe it further. It’s awesome. Watch it.

Story #3 brings us back to Adam and Zack, two soap opera actors who also happen to be a couple. This story crosses over a lot with Story #1, but depicts the events from a different point of view. William Fichtner and Jane Krakowski both give amazing and hilarious performances here, and Wolfe and Mohr hold their own as well. Whatever happened to Scott Wolfe anyway?

All three stories tie together at the end in a very satisfying way, including the film’s best line: “And then there’s the Family fucking Circus, bottom right-hand corner, just waiting to suck.” In case you hadn’t figured it out yet, I love this movie. It’s up there on my all-time list and I’ve probably seen it 20+ times.

But I have to say, It’s not all that Christmas-y. Sure, you can tell that Christmas is happening around the characters. Even the rave (remember those?) that takes place has a giant, green Santa Claus front and centre.  But this film contains none of your typical Christmas themes. Family, generosity, goodwill towards all, there’s nothing. In fact, many of the characters have profound personality flaws and frankly deserve what happens to them. So, don’t watch this if you’re looking to get in a holiday-like mood.

But DO watch it if you want to see a film with great storytelling, amazing acting, hilarious dialogue, insane situations, and a killer soundtrack. It’s even got a pre-EVERYTHING Melissa McCarthy, who I’d completely forgotten was in this. So yeah, this one’s a winner in my books.

Next up: Life of Brian