Christmas Movies: Go

Around the year 2000 one of the movies my grandparents sent me had this promotional trailer called “Cool Movies On DVD”. It was a preview of a collection of teen drama, thriller, and horror films that came out between 1997 and 1999. I was a big fan of most of the movies in this line up including “I Know What You Did Last Summer”, “I Still Know What You Did Last Summer”, “Urban Legend” and “Jawbreaker”, but there was one movie in the list I had never heard of before called “Go”. When I researched “Go” I learned that this movie was referred to as the younger sibling of “Pulp Fiction” from Quentin Tarantino. Eventually I saw it and realized not only was that true, but this movie is also one of the best Christmas movies ever.

Starring Sarah Polley, Taye Diggs, Katie Holmes, Desmond Askew, Jay Mohr, Scott Wolf and Timothy Olyphant, Go tells the story of a crazy Friday night from the perspective of three friends who work at a supermarket and two of their customers during during the Christmas holiday.

The first point of view we are shown is that of Ronna’s portrayed by Sarah Polley. Ronna is struggling to pay her rent before she gets evicted. After being offered an extra shift from her coworker Simon so he can go a weekend trip to Vegas with some friends, Ronna also tries to score and drug deal that lands her in some trouble along with her other coworker friend Claire and Manny.

The second point of view of the night is shown from Simon portrayed by Desmond Askew who traded shifts with Ronna for his trip. Simon heads to Vegas with three of his friends including Marcus, portrayed by Taye Diggs. The night quickly takes a crazy turn when Simon has a fling with two girls during which he burns down a hotel room and gets into a fight with a couple of thugs at a strip club that puts him and his friends in danger.

The third perspective of the night is shown from the point of view of Adam and Zach, portrayed by Jay Mohr and Scott Wolf, who are a couple of actors that are dating each other who have also been forced into a sting operation by the cops after being busted from drug possession and are responsible for unintentionally throwing Ronna into a trap that leads to a near deadly late night turn of events.

The story is also anchored by Timothy Olyphant who portrays the film’s sub antagonist Todd Gaines, a drug dealer who links together all the trouble that the story’s characters get themselves in throughout the film’s events.

The first thing I noticed about this film was it definitely looked like Pulp Fiction’s little brother just like the critics said, only I liked this movie better than Pulp Fiction and that’s saying a lot considering that Pulp Fiction is one of my favorite movies ever. Directed by Doug Limon who also made the film Swingers, Go is definitely a crazy fun and crude Christmas flick. Every character in the story adds a unique energy to the film with both humor and seriousness that balances the interest the viewer has in the story. This was in part thanks to it’s all star cast which also includes a cameo from a young Melissa McCarthy, who made her film debut in this movie.

Go is definitely one of my favorite Christmas movies ever. It really does a great job at capturing the chaos of the Christmas spirit in a humorous way. Because of its great sense of simplistic but in depth storytelling it’s also one of the many films that has inspired my writing style. If you’ve never seen Go before do yourself a favor and go watch it, pun intended. It’s definitely Christmas fun.