Film

Go

Name: Go
Genre: Crime, Comedy, Thriller
Released: 1999
Cast: Sarah Polley, Timothy Olyphant, Katie Holmes, Desmond Askew, Jay Mohr

Drug-trade crime
Relentless

Go is a breezy, kinetic 1999 crime comedy that splinters one Vegas-bound weekend into three overlapping timelines. It's a film that trusts you to keep up, rewarding close attention with callbacks and reversals. It's for people who like movies that move fast, surprise you, and never forget to be fun while chaos unfolds.

TMDb rating

3.5

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love a tangled, non-linear caper that doubles back on itself, where the same night is replayed from three different angles and the jokes come from character rather than setup.

Skip it if you want a tidy, straightforward plot or find frantic, drug-soaked chaos wearing thin fast, since the energy rarely lets up and the rhythm is deliberately scrambled.

What it asks of you: Around 100 minutes, but it moves quickly and keeps shifting perspective, so you need to stay alert to who is where and when the story is looping back.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Pulp Fiction1994

The spiritual grandfather of Go's structure: multiple intertwined stories, pop-culture riffing, sudden violence, and the sense that everything's connected in ways you won't see coming until the last act clicks into place.

But It's nearly three hours and can feel self-satisfied. Some of it hasn't aged as well as its reputation suggests.

Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels1998

Same year's energy, same rat-a-tat-tat dialogue and cascading misunderstandings. A British ensemble where every character is stupid in a different way and the plot folds back on itself beautifully.

But The accents can be impenetrable if you're not primed for it. The macho posturing wears thin.

Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels poster

Trainspotting1996

High-velocity style, young ensemble cast in over their heads, and a refusal to make drug use romantic even as the film's clearly exhilarated. Kinetic editing and a killer soundtrack.

But It's genuinely grim and unpleasant in ways Go avoids. If you can't stomach heroin realism, this will exhaust you.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Go

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Magnolia1999

Both fracture narrative time into parallel stories about strangers colliding; both trust viewers to hold multiple threads. But Go is a sprint, Magnolia is a marathon of quieter desperation.

Same year as Go, same conviction that multiple lives can cascade into one another. But where Go is gleeful, Magnolia is a three-hour deluge of accumulated longing and revelation. Same structural DNA, opposite emotional temperature.

But It's a Paul Thomas Anderson film, which means patiently observant where Go is aggressively energetic. The ending will seem absurd to some.

The Gentlemen2020

A modern Guy Ritchie film that learned what made early Ritchie work: ensemble crime comedy with a framing narrator, betrayals within betrayals, and enough style that you'll forgive the plot holes.

But It's longer and more bloated than it needs to be. The dialogue occasionally tips into smug.

Four Rooms1995

Similar length, similar ambition to build comedy around a contained scenario with escalating stakes. Young ensemble cast, multiple perspectives on the same night, and genuine oddball charm.

But It's uneven—some bits land brilliantly, others collapse. Tim Roth's bellhop is either delightful or unbearable depending on your patience.

Snatch2000

Ritchie's follow-up proving the formula works: interlocking crime stories, Cockney thugs, diamond heists, style for its own sake, and a sense that no one in this world has more than two functioning brain cells.

But At a certain point the self-conscious cleverness becomes the point, and if you're not on that wavelength you'll find it exhausting.

Smokin' Aces2006

Takes the multi-perspective crime-comedy structure and swings for maximum chaos: a bounty on a magician, dozens of characters with different agendas converging on Lake Tahoe, splinters of dark humor in the violence.

But It's messier than it means to be. Too many characters muddy the waters.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang2005

Shane Black's valentine to crime-comedy chaos: LA noir filtered through Hollywood artificiality, snappy banter, real violence interrupting the jokes, and a narrator commenting on his own story's absurdity.

But The tone shifts hard from funny to brutal. If you want consistency over surprises, it'll frustrate you.

In Good Company2004

A lighter take on ensemble storytelling with intersecting lives, workplace comedy bleeding into romance, and enough heart to remind you why these characters matter between the gags.

But It's sweet in ways that undercut the energy. If you're here for chaos, this domesticates the concept.

Sexy Beast2001

Both feature crime worlds where the rules are understood by insiders and dangerous for outsiders; both have a dream-logic quality to reality. But where Go treats crime as a sandbox, Sexy Beast makes it feel like a trap.

A crime film from the same moment, but from Spain, filtered through art-house sensibility. Ray Winstone as a London gangster hiding in Barcelona, then terrorized by Ben Kingsley's arrival. Surreal, violent, beautiful, genuinely unsettling.

But It's slow-burn and painterly where Go is immediate. If you want narrative momentum over dread and texture, it won't satisfy.