Customer Reviews

The Junkman

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

To clarify the apparent confusion over this film:

The Junkman is NOT Deadline Auto Theft. Both films have been referred to as Gone in 60 Seconds II, which is the source of some confusion.

Gone in 60 Seconds (the original) is perhaps the best car chase movie ever made. Deadline Auto Theft is nothing more than Gone in 60 Seconds with some of the scenes replaced by an inferior new subplot about a Sheriff out to catch the auto thieves, but his plot goes absolutely nowhere (He is never involved in any of the chases, nor do they resove his storyline. He simply disappears). Many of the original scenes which were replaced have to do with the mechanics of autotheft and character development, thus ruining a great film.

The Junkman is nothing more than a vanity piece. In The Junkman, Halicki (the director of Gone in 60 Seconds, owner of a junkyard, and collector of toys) plays a junkyard owner who collects toys and just finished directing a film coincidentally called "Gone in 60 Seconds". Most of the film consists of him showing off his toy and car collections. What little plot there is consists of one of his investors trying to create publicity for the film by destroying a lot of cars participating in a road race by, e.g., dropping bombs on them from a plane, and by attempting to kill Halicki before he can make it to the film's premiere. Unlike Gone in 60 Seconds, the chases are totally unexciting, build no suspense, and do not showcase any skillfull driving (I mean on part of the fictional characters, not the stunt drivers).

This is honestly a better film than Gone in 60 Seconds. Toby clearly had more time, money, and experience on this picture. Gone has some nice car crashes, but they're stuck in an unwatchably amateurish film you'd be embarassed to make your friends sit through. This film isn't Oscar material, but the plot is about on par with most silly action films of today. There's lots of humor, and plenty of cars flying through the air, crashing and burning in slow motion.

Also worth mentioning is that Amazon's special feature list is incomplete. The dvd also contains interviews with a few people from the production and a commentary with the production manager (Jack Vacek) and the director of photography (Tony Syslo).

All in all, a better film than Halicki's first, the original "Gone in 60 Seconds".

No-one is ever going to accuse the late H.B.Halicki of being a great writer, director or actor. But he sure could wreck cars. And airplanes. And buildings.

The story in this film is more coherent and comprehensible than "60 Seconds", and the overall production values (sound especially) are higher.

Plotwise, it's a sort of thriller -- junkman H.B.Hollis (Halicki) has made a car-crash film called "Gone in 60 Seconds" and someone wants to kill him before the film opens. So they sic assassins in cars and airplanes on him as he drives cross-country to a James Dean tribute festival.

And we're off to the races.

Despite the violence implicit in the plot, this is, overall, a pretty light-hearted comedy serving mostly as an excuse to xrash even more cars than in the previous film in even more inventive ways. Nicely absurd touches include the row of sunglasses on Hollis's dashboard that never move no matter how violent the maneuver, and the RFD mailboxes he hits partway through the chase.

The level of seriousness with which Halicki and crew approached this film can be seen from the fact that the sign on "Hollis's" junkyard is not changed and still reads "H.B.Halicki Mercantile Emporium and Junk Yard"; the collections of classic cars and of toys contained therein, by the way, are wonderful.

The late Hoyt Axton plays himself, and has a wonderful time doing so, by all indications.

Particularly noteworthy are the stunts involving aerobatic planes, including one in which a car jumps over an airplane -- but there are some purely automotive eye-poppers, too. (Nothing to match "The Jump" from "60 Seconds" for pure "How did anyone have the guts to do THAT?" bravura, but the jump over the stage and the parking-lot escape, for instances, are pretty good.)

Given the degree of improvements Halicki exhibits in technique and story between "60 Seconds" and this film, it's particularly disappointing that Halicki was killed in a freak accident on the set of his third production, "Gone in 60 Seconds II", and we never got to see if he would have been even better on it.

(This review refers to the VHS version -- i understand that there is/was a DVD version on which themusic has largely been replaced with generic music cues due to licensing problems. That would rate half a star less.)

With a Titile like that how can you go wrong this was the second film for legandary director,producer,actor and true car guy H.B Toby Haliki his most famous film being the cult classic Gone in 60 Seconds this film while the crashes are incredible and the acting is notisably better I found it lacked something the story was a little had to follow and it laged a little at times but for anybody into cars,action and an all around classic GET THIS MOVIE!

No matter how good the special features might be, there is no way they could make this a good movie.. Maybe DVD will help, you can skip to the more spectacular crashes and segments, but overall this movie is a poorly acted, poorly directed, excuse to wreck cars.. normally I wouldn't complain.. I love car wrecks, and the original Gone in 60 seconds was a GREAT car wreck movie with a cheezy story.. But unfortunately this one just doesn't work, give it a rent, laugh at the some of the more incredible stunts, but don't waste your money, because its just not worth it

This movie has a better attempt at a story than Halicki's previous movie, Gone in 60 Seconds, but the driving and stunts aren't quite as exciting. Still, Halicki delivers more the rip-roaring action and comedy in a way that looks more realistic than most movies of this style. The story is still feels like it was inserted more as an afterthought to the stunts and action sequences, but it was a more coherent than it's predecessor.

I've always been a fan of Halick's films and to have them on DVD is almost too good to be true. This DVD is no exception. Junkman is another high-action, high-speed movie with lots of crashes. Some of the crashes are rather lame and were probably only added to make the "150 cars wrecked" tagline. There is one major disappointment in the soundtrack: all the original '80s music has been replaced with generic music loops.

One star (hey, I'm being generous) for acting, direction, cinematography, editing, art direction, sound recording, writing, costumes, makeup and all those other creative areas that contribute to the magic of the movies. You'll be hard put to find a single redeeming feature in this nonsense. Halicki's other car caper special, 'Gone in 60 Seconds', was pretty dreadful in all the above departments but at least it had a cool forty minute car chase, which, thanks to film editor Warner Leighton, turned out rather well but even he could not do much with 'The Junkman'.

There is plenty of chase action but most of it takes place in the safety of the Californian countryside and so loses the visual impact of a city chase with plenty of other vehicles and obstructions. Cars at speed on rural routes just look feeble.

If you want chases stick to 60 Seconds and forget 'The Junkman'. BTW, it was originally titled 'Gone in 60 Seconds 2.

The best part of this movie is during the chase of the Bricklin. This gull wing flyer is first seen by the Queen Mary in Long Beach. The it is followed in the L.A. river to a cool end of chase, when the Bricklin's doors open and takes a flying leap over the cop cars....really cool!

If you like car crash and car chase scenes then this is the movie. If you have seen the original "Gone in 60 seconds". Then you may not be impressed because a lot of the same footage is used in all three movies. It was still worth seeing.