Breathless

Jesse has to get out of Las Vegas quickly, and steals a car to drive to L.A. On the way he shoots a police man…

• Director:Jim McBride
• Genre:Action / Drama / Romance / Thriller
• Runtime:96 minutes

Cast

Richard Gere : Jesse Lujack
Val?rie Kaprisky: Monica Poiccard
Art Metrano : Birnbaum
John P. Ryan : Lt. Parmental
William Tepper : Paul

Jesse Lujack (Richard Gere) is a drifter in Las Vegas, obsessed with Marvel Silver Surfer comic books, the rock and roll music of Jerry Lee Lewis and Monica Poiccard (Valérie Kaprisky), a UCLA architecture undergraduate whom he knows only from a weekend fling in Vegas. As the film opens, Jesse steals a car, intending to drive to Los Angeles. As he speeds down the highway and looks through the owner’s possessions, he discovers an automatic handgun in the vehicle’s glovebox. Seeing his reckless driving, a policeman gives chase and Jesse is forced off the road and becomes stuck. When the policeman orders him to step away from the car, Jesse impulsively grabs the gun and shoots the officer. Fleeing to Los Angeles, Jesse finds his picture splashed all over the newspaper and TV news as the “cop killer.”

On the run, he moves in with Monica. She is captivated by this reckless American and resumes her affair with him. However, she is a star student with big plans and Jesse is jealous of the powerful, successful men in her life.

After Jesse’s photograph appears in the newspaper, he is recognized on the street right after dropping Monica off at an architecture-school outing downtown. The police find her and question her on the street. She seems increasingly ambivalent about Jesse, repelled by his instability but drawn to his sense of risk and danger; she does not turn him in. When the police start following her right before Jesse comes back to pick her up, she impulsively accepts his offer to flee to Mexico together.

On the way to Mexico, Monica finds that her picture is on the front page of the national newspaper alongside Jesse’s. Realizing the impossibility of her romantic fantasy, she phones the police, but then returns to tell him she did so and plead with him. The police corner them on the street, and he sings Jerry Lee Lewis’ “Breathless” to her before grabbing a gun from the ground at his feet as she runs towards him. The film ends in a freeze-frame of Jesse turning to face the police with the gun. Read more

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