GASOLINE ALLEY
US, 2022, 97 minutes, Colour.
Devon Sawa, Luke Wilson, Bruce Willis, Kat Foster, Sufe Bradshaw, Vernon Davis.
Directed by Edward Drake.
Gasoline Alley in this film is the name of a tattoo parlour. And the tattooist is Jimmy Jayne, a substantial role for Devon Sawa, decades on from his youthful roles.
This is what used to be called a straight-to-video action show. However, it is better than the average, more substantial plot. It is a police thriller, detective thriller, with Luke Wilson and Bruce Willis as the police. Four young women have been murdered and their bodies found, later a connection made to human trafficking with a tunnel between San Diego and Tijuana.
Jimmy has been seen with one of the dead girls and is chief suspect. Luke Wilson is confidently overbearing in his interrogations, Bruce Willis staying more in the background. But, this drama is different because Jimmy decides to investigate the murders himself, tracking down an action film star whom he had protected during their stints in prison, getting protection from a motor vehicle expert on the set, going back to the club and interrogating the bartender and others, the girls being revealed as would-be actresses but working in prostitution. And the further revelation that this is where Jimmy’s mother worked before she married a policeman, praised for his work, her disappearing and his becoming alcoholic.
So, a lot of tough stances, audiences interested in Jimmy’s detection, especially with another aspiring actress played by Sufe Bradshaw who, in herself, is captured.
The other connection is a film screenwriter, especially for pornography, and the host of various parties, the host eventually being murdered, the writer giving information to Jimmy who is then brutal towards him.
Action in San Diego, in the tunnel, the smuggling of the girls. And, the previous revelation that Bruce Willis is playing a corrupt cop who gets his cut for all the girls taken.
So, while is one of the many Bruce Willis films he made in his final years of acting, it is rather different, his role more of a cameo, and he makes a snarling villain.
