Shopping

Pretty boy Billy is an amoral rebel without a cause. His anarchic response to a bleak London existence is to steal cars and drive them through shop windows: "crash and carry," as one fellow "shopper" terms it. But he and his tough, video-game obsessed gal-pal Jo are no Bonnie and Clyde. Their shopping trips are merely a pretext for the adrenaline rush of destruction and the thrill of playing high-speed tag with the cops, a game that starts to wear thin on Jo. "Why don't you grow up, eh?" she finally asks. "And do what?" he helplessly replies. The feature debut of Brit stylist Paul Anderson is a sleek film of misty alleys, blue-lit underground garages, and slick city streets. It's a dystopian London of the near future through the lens of Blade Runner driven almost single-handedly by Law's reckless charm and wild energy. It's hard to tell if the film is about the nihilism of sensation-hunting lost youth or simply a sensational melodrama of aimless rebellion, but there's nonetheless something irresponsibly appealing in Billy's anti-establishment rampage.