Just in time for the 4th of July, Brian De Palma's 1981 paranoid masterpiece returns to the big screen. Philly sound-effects artist John Travolta records a car accident that he starts to believe may be a politically motivated murder. De Palma's stylish and inspired mash up of Coppola’s The Conversation and Antonioni’s Blow Up climaxing in a spectacular "Liberty Day" parade set-piece--remains one of the key conspiracy thrillers of the 1980s, and a major influence on filmmakers from Quentin Tarantino to Oliver Stone.
"In BLOW OUT, John Travolta plays... a sound man for a sleazy Philadelphia B-movie factory. He works on cheap, cynical exploitation films. Late one night, while he's standing on a bridge recording owls and other night sounds, he becomes a witness to an accident. A car has a blowout, swerves off a bridge, and plunges into a river. Travolta plunges in after it, rescues a girl inside (Nancy Allen), and later discovers that the car's drowned driver was a potential presidential candidate. Still later, reviewing his sound recording of the event, Travolta becomes convinced that he can hear a gunshot just before the blowout. Was the accident actually murder? He traces down Nancy Allen, discovers that she was part of a blackmail plot against the candidate, and then comes across the trail of a slimy private eye (Dennis Franz) who wanted to cause a blowout, all right, but didn't figure on anybody getting killed." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times