“Blow Out is here to trick you,” writes critic Noah Gittell. “It pretends it has something deep and profound to say about America. Set on the weekend of the fictional Liberty Day Parade in Philadelphia, Blow Out revolves around a political assassination and cover-up, and concludes with a murder committed under fireworks and in front of an enormous American Flag. It’s the story of Jack Terry (John Travolta), a soundman for cheap B-movies, who accidentally records audio of a car crash that kills a presidential candidate and becomes determined to prove a conspiracy. There are echoes of the JFK assassination and Chappaquiddick, and Jack’s paranoid mind reflects the collective suspicions of an entire generation still processing the failures and tragedies of the ’60s nearly two decades later. But director Brian De Palma is not a political artist, and that’s for the best. He’s a filmmaker who is most fascinated with the art of cinema—or you could say, the act of looking.”
Read his review of the 1981 cult classic, screening at Alamo on July 3, at the link in our bio.
📸 courtesy of Alamo Drafthouse
