...a terrible film from start to finish.
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"Crash and Burn" is an insipid, poorly conceived knockoff of "Gone in 60 Seconds" and "The Fast and the Furious." The film stars Erik Palladino who looks like a poor man´s Stephen Baldwin with his squinty eyes and a bad, pencil-thin mustache. Palladino plays Kevin Hawkins, a former car thief turned undercover FBI agent. Hawkins returns to his old stomping grounds in Los Angeles to infiltrate a car theft ring run by his former cohorts. His ex-colleagues operate out of a chop shop and they include Hill Dorset (David Moscow) and his younger brother Benny (Owen Beckman), along with Manny (Peter Jason), an elderly mechanic. His superiors task him with bringing down their boss, Vincent Scaillo (Michael Madsen), a violent mobster (as if there were any other kind). However, Hawkins is more interested in finding out who killed his best friend, Jason Middleton (Tom O´Keefe). Complicating matters is Jason´s sister, Penny (Heather Marie Madsen), who also happens to be Hawkins´ ex-girlfriend. The two of them haven´t spoken in years since Hawkins lit out without so much as a word to her.
Hawkins attempts to pick up his old life where he left off with Penny. Meanwhile, he´s conflicted with lying to his friends while keeping his cover a secret. Of course, it doesn´t stay secret for long when Vincent discovers Hawkins is really working for the Feds. In a blatant rip-off of "Infernal Affairs," one of Vincent´s men follows Hawkins to a meeting with his superior on the roof of a parking structure. He later tosses the FBI agent off another roof and onto the hood of Hawkins´ car. Taking Penny hostage, Vincent gives Hawkins forty-eight hours to steal the last couple cars on his want list in order to complete a major deal with his buyer. Hawkins not only has to do Vincent´s bidding, he also has to contend with a Latino gang led by the tattooed Ramiro Chialpa (Lobo Sebastian). The gangbangers don´t take kindly to Vincent´s crew muscling in on their territory and light Benny on fire as a warning.
"Crash and Burn" is a terrible film from start to finish. For a film with violent street gangs, murderous crime lords, fast cars, and hot chicks, it sure is a chore to sit through. The dialogue isn´t badly written as much as it is just plain boring. It really doesn´t matter what the characters say anyways, as they are all one-dimensional caricatures. Hawkins is the conflicted, taciturn hero while Penny is only in the film to be his damsel in distress. She gets maybe a handful of scenes in the movie and each follow the basic damsel in distress formula. She´s angry to see her old beau, she makes up with him, she gets captured by the villain, and she gets rescued. I was surprised to see Frank Hannah who co-wrote the excellent William H. Macy vehicle, "The Cooler," listed as one of the writers. I guess somebody needed their kitchen remodeled.
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