A biography of Quentin Tarantino that I owned when I was 15 informed me that Blow Out (1981) was Tarantino’s favourite performance by John Travolta, the film he cited to convince the actor to trust in his comeback with Pulp Fiction (1994). After so many years of hearing that it was great from critics (especially Pauline Kael’s loving review of it), it’s funny to realise that it’s still a Brian De Palma film. Part of its critical reputation is built on its Blow Up inspired murder mystery that draws in cultural, socio-political references to the 1970s as an era of paranoia with political assassinations, recorded lies, and bystander guilt. Yet it’s still effectively lurid as any of De Palma’s other thrillers (Dressed To Kill, Body Double), often quite campy (Nancy Allen’s choice of voice for her sex worker character, the slasher tendencies of John Lithgow’s villain), all crescendoing into a gorgeous climax of fireworks heightened by Pino Donaggio’s score. It’s prime De Palma, Hitchcock-inspired flair working within Watergate-era conspiracy that grounds it more than his other films, and yes, Travolta’s very good, underwriting his boyish charisma with a haunted weariness. Recommended.
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