U-Turn

REVIEW
With his most comic film to date, director Stone travels to the hot Arizona desert where a wrong turn and unfulfilled passions can lead to murder, or at least a damn entertaining time. Penn is Bobby, a motorist stranded in the dusty little town of Superior. Mysteriously missing two fingers, easily agitated and possibly crooked, Bobby's short stay while his car is fixed becomes an exercise in the bizarre. Blind men keep dead dogs, and a beautiful Native American woman (Lopez) and her sleazy white husband (Nolte) each want Bobby to murder the other. As Bobby tries to figure out allegiances and avoid the local sheriff (Boothe), his trip down the rabbit hole becomes increasingly strange and dangerous. Stone brings a vigorous energy to the film, which tackles some of the same territory as Natural Born Killers but is more effective than that gratuituous bloodbath. The humor, though dark and sarcastic, is focused and funny, and the pacing swift. A fun, gritty, nasty, sexy, noirish, unpredictable ride.