go 's is a gloriously slick hip machine .
director liman ( who also photographed go ) and screenwriter august celebrate the drug / rave scene in l .
a .
, preferring to take ( comedic ) snapshots of troubled youth rather than critique them .
after more than ninety minutes of pill - popping , tantric sex , car chases , and attempted murder , go even has a happy ending .
this is the sort of film that gives members of the dove foundation splitting headaches ; as go wound down , i anticipated an anti - pill - popping - casual - tantric - sex - car - chase - attempted - murder sermon that ( blessedly ) did n't arrive .
a la tarantino 's pulp fiction , go is comprised of three separate but related stories .
the basics are as follows :
ronna ( polley ) is a bitter grocery store clerk facing eviction who turns to drug dealing for extra dough .
her co - worker , simon ( the improbably named askew ) , is a clubber from britain ecstatic about his first trip to vegas .
zack ( mohr ) and adam ( wolf ) are soap opera stars escaping a career - threatening conviction by assisting a peculiar cop ( fichtner ) in a drug bust .
perhaps because the innovative structure of tarantino 's non - linear masterwork is by now old hat , the id - fueled go delighted me but rarely surprised me ( with the exception of that mind - reading cat ! ) ; pulp fiction zigzagged down roads unforeseen , but we see go 's wheels turning from its first flash frame to the last .
torontonian polley ( of the sweet hereafter ) refused to do publicity for this picture on the basis that she was " not pleased with " her turn as the ill - fated cashier .
in go , she delivers , hands - down , her best performance to date .
here 's an ( overrated ) actress who agreed to appear on the poster , but not support her team at the junket or in interviews ; this sort of arrogance is commonplace for ms .
polley , as anyone who has read of her political agenda in the canadian press will tell you .
if she does n't want to be the ingenue of the moment , she should have said " no , " not go .
but i digress .
go is a fun film , so chipperly depraved one ca n't help but turn off his moral judgment for its duration and enjoy the ride .
in that sense , it 's a departure from liman 's last film , swingers , which at least lectured against self - absorption in the form of vince vaughan 's trent and his subtle comeuppance in the story 's clever epilogue ( which has been aped by mcdonald 's for their latest commercial ) .
i wish i cared more about go 's characters : like the techno music they listen to , the bands of anarchists on display here are at once absorbing and vacuous .
when the lights came up and stung my eyes , it was difficult to recall what about it entertained me . yet
entertain me it did
.
go is light and frothy , featuring compelling if not endearing work by polley , timothy olyphant ( scream 2 ) , and especially fichtner , whose homoerotic behavior is milked for effective laughs .
fichtner is a character actor best known for playing backstabbers ( in heat , armageddon , and others ) ; his previously untapped comic abilities shine in go .
unlike much of the film , fichtner is unpredictable .
she delivers , hands - down , her best performance to date entertain me it did at once absorbing and vacuous