Blow Out (1981)
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A sound technician's recording of a car accident reveals a chilling secret that plunges him into a dangerous conspiracy.
The story
While recording sounds for a low-budget slasher film in Philadelphia, sound technician Jack Terry captures the audio of a car accident involving a young woman, Sally Bedina. After a local official pressures him to keep her involvement quiet, Jack listens to his recordings and discovers a gunshot just before the crash. Suspecting an assassination, he begins to investigate the incident with Sally's help. As they piece together the evidence from his audio and a nearby photographer's film, they realize they are being watched by a conspiracy determined to keep the truth of the accident hidden.
Full plot (contains spoilers)
Jack Terry, a sound technician, records a car accident involving Sally Bedina and a politician. Upon reviewing the audio, Jack hears a gunshot, leading him to believe the crash was a deliberate assassination. He teams up with Sally to investigate, using his recordings and footage from a nearby photographer to prove the crime. They discover a conspiracy involving a hitman named Burke, who orchestrated the 'accident' and murdered several look-alikes to cover his tracks. As the investigation deepens, Burke begins to track them down. After a tense sequence involving a radio show and a train station, Jack realizes Sally is being hunted. In a final confrontation on a rooftop, Jack manages to kill Burke but finds Sally already dead. The film ends with Jack incorporating her final scream into the film he was originally recording.
- First release year
- 1981
- Runtime (minutes)
- 108
- Production countries
- United States
- Original languages
- English
- Directors
- Brian De Palma
- Writers
- Brian De Palma · writer
- Cast and characters
- John Travolta · Jack Terry; Nancy Allen · Sally Bedina; John Lithgow; Dennis Franz
- Genres
- neo-noir; mystery; thriller
- Themes
- mechanics of movie making; guilt; voyeurism
- Tone and mood
- suspenseful; cynical
- Premise and plot tags
- conspiracy; investigation; sound recording; political thriller
- Source material / true-story basis
- Inspired by Michelangelo Antonioni's 1966 film Blowup
- Reception
- The film received mostly positive reviews and has since gained a status as a cult film.
- Reported review scores
- Rotten Tomatoes · score: 89% · scale: percentage · review count: 61; Metacritic · score: 86 · scale: 100 · review count: 15
- Production trivia
- The script was based on a story outline for a project titled Personal Effects.; The film's soundtrack features a cue used by Quentin Tarantino in Death Proof.
Film metadata comes from the open sources listed in Credits & Contact. Catalogue details may be incomplete.
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