Opens June 9, 2000.

Hot-concept perpetrator/producer Jerry Bruckheimer -- the maker of such splashy commercial vehicles as Armageddon and The Rock, not to mention the Top Gun-ning he did with his late man-in-black sidekick, Don Simpson -- has once again hot-wired together all the basic commercial movie elements for a glossy, super testosterone-charged summer vehicle. Fueled with high-octane dynamics, and stripped down of emotional luggage, Gone in Sixty Secondsis a petal-to-the-metal blast. Accordingly, for those who do not want meat dripping on the grill, Main Street parades or holiday fireworks to mess up their summer soirees, Sixty Secondsmight be a minute too long to endure. But, as a muscle movie, it rips.

You don't have to be a sallow-eyed geek from the UCLA film school to notice there may have been a few movies that producer Bruckheimer and his technical/pit crew have chopped and loaded onto this neo-Western story frame: The Driver, Bullitt and Grand Theft Auto to name a few of the filmic four wheelers. Bruckheimer and his formula-basic crew have revved it with a ticking clock and detailed it with some special trimmings - hints of Angelina Jolie's pink undies, a bulldog on a laxative, a gnarly Long Beach scrap yard, and flatfoot gang-bangers. Admittedly, it's about as thick and heavy as a can of 10W40, and overall there's a lot of gunk here, but credit screenwriter Scott Rosenberg for the slick story transmission, which rarely idles over any unnecessary sentimental sludge or emits much in the way of emotional exhaust.

Luscious cars, from malicious Mercedes to creamy 57 T-birds to luscious Lamborghinis, are the substance of this, essentially, male wet-metal dream: There's a lot of fondling (car theft tools), insertions (into drive shafts) and then full-throttle acceleration, all peaked with squeals and revs as our gang of Robin Hood-thieves get their rocks off with their stolen cars. Not surprisingly, they refer to them with specific female names. Before we hairpin into some sort of dippy film-school rant, let's just say the car worship here is a shrewd cinematic shift from sex. And, for the summer movie crowd, what's better than, say, some back-seat sex?

To discuss, Sixty Seconds in solely dramatic terms is to miss the point of what's powering this movie's engine: Car chases, crashes, bad-guy putdowns, and just the thrill ride of snatching one of those cars that most of us will never have the chance to own. While none of the chases are in the league with Bullitt, when McQueen in his Mach 1 outdistanced the bad guys in their black Charger, they're right up there with current demolition-derby style chases that fuel action movie's today, including a crazy liftoff at just the right climactic moment.

Credit to screenwriter Scott Rosenberg for his professional tooling of this story vehicle. Even those "experts" who teach Saturday seminars based on their mastery of last year's models will concede that Gonegoes in the right direction, shifting and revving in all the right spots and never entirely wiping out on any over-stretches. Director Dominic Sena makes all the right shifts in this super-charged summer ride.

Nicolas Cage smartly turns his own acting dial a couple of RPMs, nicely playing the lead as a laconic good-guy who leads his trusty Dirty Dozen-ish unit of crooks, psychos, and whizzes on this joy ride. Vinnie Jones as a rock-hard rockhead is particularly entertaining as a guy you don't mess with, while TJ Cross is a combustible additive as, basically, a ghetto-ized smurf. As the blonde bad girl, Angelina Jolie has just the right chassis, while Delroy Lindo is solid and sympathetic as the arm of the law.

If you don't have a Volvo mentality, this muscle movie is for you.