Mustangs in the Movies: Fox Body in ‘Point of No Return’
A red drop-top Fox Body 5.0 has a brief — but action-packed — cameo in the 1990 thriller Point of No Return.
Walking into a theater cold, when I have no idea what to expect, is my favorite way to see a film — and that’s what happened with Point of No Return. It was my 19th birthday, and my friend Patty wanted to take me to the movies. We picked this particular flick entirely because of what time it was showing, off of a list of times in the local alt-weekly, Creative Loafing. So I hadn’t even seen the poster. Yup, if you haven’t guessed, I’m super old.
Well as luck would have it, Point of No Return turned out to be a hell of a lot of fun. In a nutshell, it’s the story of Maggie, a drug-addled street urchin who winds up sentenced to death for shooting a police officer during a robbery gone wrong. But her extraordinarily scrappy nature piques the interest of a secret government project that’s kind of like Queer Eye — but with hand-to-hand combat and weapons training.
If that story sounds familiar, it’s because Point of No Return is a remake of the French neo-noir classic La Femme Nikita, which had been released three years earlier.
While both films have their merits, and Luc Besson’s original is arguably better, the American version has more than few tricks up its sleeve. First, there’s a stellar cast, including Bridget Fonda, Gabriel Byrne, Anne Bancroft, and Harvey Keitel. And second, it contains a couple of borderline gratuitous — but thoroughly enjoyable — sequences the original lacks.
Where the remake truly outshines the original, however, is the soundtrack. In the story, Maggie grew up listening to Nina Simone, so there are five tracks from High Priestess of Soul, including “I Want a Little Sugar in My Bowl,” “Wild is the Wind,” and “Black is the Color of My True Love’s Hair,” used throughout the film. Before seeing this movie, I had no idea who Nina Simone was, and after hearing her astonishing voice, I immediately went looking for her music. So while it’s a super-fun watch, I’ll always have a soft spot for this somewhat-forgotten gem, as it introduced me to a tremendous artist, and truly expanded my musical horizons.
Enjoy the clip, and let me know what your favorite Mustangs in the Movies scene is — I’d love to write about it for the blog!
Photos: Ford
Join the Mustang Forums now!
You must be logged in to post a comment.