Movie Loner

John Travolta has made a select few what I would call good films.
Saturday Night Fever, Pulp Fiction, Get Shorty, hell, I’ll even throw
in Face/Off. Blow Out is one you might not be familiar with, but it’s
one of his best.

He plays Jack Terry, a special effects sound editor, who one night
while recording ambiant sound, witnesses a car blow a tire and veer off
the road. The wreck kills a presidential candidate. A cover-up ensues.

While playing back his sound recordings, Terry discovers that the tire may
not have blown on accident. He thinks he heard a gunshot. Proving his
theory to be correct, he begins asking questions, which brings him
unwanted attention from some bad people.

Blow Out is a solid mystery. It was an attempt by Travolta to shed the
song and dance man reputation he earned on Grease and Saturday Night Fever.
He’s very convincing and plays the character with the right amount of
intelligence and paranoia.

Brian DePalma, one of my favorite directors of the 70’s and 80’s, uses
his Hitchcock influenced eye and ear to create a story where sound,
more so than picture, becomes the key cinematic element. Praise should also
go to John Lithgow, who creepily shines as the villain.

Blow Out works for me because it reveals some of the technical magic that
goes into filmmaking. The silent film era produced excellent movies, but
the advent of sound on film added more tension to an already compelling
medium.