Noutions Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

Reptileenbu Did you people see the same film I saw?

Matrixiole Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

Quiet Muffin This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

rioplaydrum A stupid plot, fast cars, cops being wrecked in their own cars and motorcycles, a very cool driver, and oh,...A gorgeous naked chick on a Honda motorcycle in the middle of the desert.You can't think this stuff up! Throw in a hip black radio host and you've got it all.This is the archetypical 70's rebel movie. A Vietnam Vet and disgraced cop racing across the United States in a bad-ass car against all odds.What can go wrong? ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING! A true American Classic.So many movies that year fell by the way side totally unremembered.This film delivered and always will.Vanishing Point smokes like a ten-ton bomb that waits to go off at the very end.Loved it. Will always love it.

grantss Very good, and surprisingly so. I only watched this because it gets many reverential references in Quentin Tarantino's "Death Proof". Expected it to be nothing more than a revhead movie, but it is far better than that.More like Easy Rider on four wheels. A movie about freedom and individuality. Good script, but it is the direction and the setting that makes this movie great. Richard Sarafian sketches Kowalski's character through flashbacks and delivered information, showing you why he is doing what he is doing. The ending is perfect.Barry Newman hardly had much dialogue, but in playing Kowalski he defined anti-authoritarian freedom-loving figures forever.

atlasmb A few years before "Smokey and the Bandit" would present a confusing mixture of messages about the joys of traveling the road, came "Vanishing Point", a superb film about which so much could be written. I saw this film when it first came out--a nineteen year old who could really identify with the film's point of view.Yes, this film owes a debt to "Easy Rider" (1969) and "Bonnie and Clyde" (1967), but the anti-heroes of "Easy Rider" were looking for truth. Kowalski, the anti-hero of "Vanishing Point" is looking for freedom.This film should be classified under "fantasy". It is a libertarian fantasy, a dream of escaping the control and corruption of the establishment (as it was then called). In the early 70s, a great turmoil enveloped this country. Those who fought for peace (in the shadow of the Vietnam conflict), racial equality, a redefining of gender roles, and the freedom of the individual to do or become whatever he desires (as long as it does not violate the freedom of others) became the counterculture, a massive challenge to the status quo and those who wished to maintain traditional values.Kowalski (Barry Newman) is a man who's background and history is revealed throughout the film. From a man who merely drives for a living, he becomes a man who is trying to cope with the tragedies and inequalities of his past. Eventually, he becomes a hero to the people on the fringe of society who recognize his fight as their own. He battles the "blue meanies" (a reference to The Beatles' "Yellow Submarine"). There are various clues that this is a fantasy. No one gets hurt despite some dangerous activities. This is important because Kowalski is not out to hurt others. There are also some scenes that, though "real", seem almost to be dreams.As he drives his Challenger (of course) down western highways that disappear in the infinite at that vanishing point on the horizon, we begin to see that this is one man's rebellion, as assertion that he will no longer be controlled. This man of few words has nothing left to lose, perhaps.Accompanied by some great tunes and the encouragement of a blind DJ, Kowalski meets some interesting characters. Watch for Dean Jagger in a small, choice role as a snake hunter. "Vanishing Point" has a great cast of credited and uncredited actors and musicians.Will Kowalski (like Moses) lose his way in the desert, but eventually emerge to find a promised land? Will he become invincible and larger than life? Will he become a martyr, either by intention or by accident?One could write pages about this film and its messages. It helps to have seen it in 1971, to experience it as part of the milieu of its time. But this film is a metaphor for principles that are timeless.

TdSmth5 A guy driving a white Dodge Challenger is being chased by helicopters and cop cars. Further down the road, at a town's entrance, cops are setting up a road block with dozers no less.We then start at the beginning. The driver is to deliver the gorgeous Challenger in San Francisco, he takes some speed as he offers to be there sooner than anyone expects. At first it looks like he's driving leisurely but cops on motorcycles ask him to pull over and he drives them off the road. The chase is on, spanning Colorado, Nevada, and California. On the way he meets a guy who collects snakes in the middle of the desert and exchanges them for food with snakecharming Christians. He further meets a pretty gas station attendant, a biker and his pretty nude girl, two homosexuals who are actually out to grab him for the police, a pretty hitchhiker in the night. Wherever he goes he asks for drugs, and all the women he meets have a thing for him, even though he doesn't have a lot to say about anything.While this is going on we meet a black radio dj who is blind, has an affinity for the driver's "cause" (whatever that may be) and has a special talent/connection with the driver. He knows what the cops are up to, he engages in a "conversation" with the driver hearing what he answers to his questions.Little by little we also learn about the driver's past in flashbacks. He used to be a moral cop who stopped a colleague from raping a girl they arrested. He was a good race car driver. He had a surfer girlfriend who died.None of this changes his inevitable path, and he doesn't seem to care. Perhaps it's the drugs, the endless driving in the desert, but he acts as if wherever he goes there will be a way out, a shortcut, a dirt road he can take.Vanishing Point is a surprisingly empty movie. The driving scenes are OK for the time I guess, although something tells me the stunts could have been better. There's not a whole lot of accidents and mayhem, just a lot of driving and scenes of the guy's empty expression. To make this tolerable we get a whole lot of loud music instead of various genres. I would like to have seen more of the small towns and their people- we just get short glances.What surprised me was how little Hollywood has changes over the decades. In a way this movie has everything that Hollywood is criticized for- it portrays easy drug use, gratuitous (but welcome) nudity, white evil racist cops, stereotypical blacks, superficiality. Given how famous this movie is, I sure expected more depth, more meaning.