Director: Brian De Palma
Screenplay: Brian De Palma
Starring: John Travolta, Nancy Allen, John Lithgow, Dennis Franz
Running Time: 108 minutes
Genre: Thriller
Philadelphia sound technician Jack Terry (Travolta) is hard at work on the post production of a low-budget slasher film. Visiting a park late at night to record sound effects, Jack witnesses, and records, a car crashing off the road and into a creek. While he is able to save the passenger, Sally (Allen), the male driver is killed. It turns out that the driver was a hugely popular presidential candidate. As he analyses his recording, Jack becomes convinced that it was no accident, but murder. When Jack tries to convince the authorities of his suspicions, he soon realises that he and Sally are now targets of a very dangerous conspiracy.
This film reunites director Brian De Palma with John Travolta and Nancy Allen who all previously worked together on Carrie (1976). It's certainly fair to say that, along with Carrie, this is one of De Palma's finest films. As a director Brian De Palma has a very good eye, but tends to let style get in the way of substance. He reaches into his bag of tricks here with split-screen, long elaborate tracking shots and slow motion. The story is interesting and involving, with a strain of dark humour, and a startlingly downbeat conclusion. It features several of De Palma's recurring themes, notably guilt, voyeurism, sexually motivated violence and film references. However, this has a political dimension that was timely in the early 1980s and is still pertinent today. The action scenes are skillfully choreographed and the whole thing is genuinely exciting. John Travolta has seldom been better here, and Nancy Allen, while underused, is affecting. John Lithgow and Dennis Franz make the most of supporting roles as sleazy creeps, with Lithgow being particularly effective and chilling.
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