Gasoline Alley

Somehow, decent actors were lured into working on yet another in a string of bad, low-budget Willis movies, but not even their efforts can save this muddled, tonally inconsistent mess. At first, the plot of Gasoline Alley makes sense, as Jimmy simply wants to clear his name. But his investigation makes no sense, since he kicks it off by visiting the set of a TV show to talk to an actor friend for no particular reason. It's there that director Edward Drake seems to make fun of his own movies; the show in question is called American Siege (also the title of Drake's previous Willis movie), and characters wonder "who pays to watch this s--t?"

Things get even further out of control as the movie starts introducing more characters and more motives, and when the killer is finally revealed, it happens more with a "thud" than a "click." Sawa tries to bring some hard-boiled toughness to his role, while Wilson reads his lines with a fast-paced wryness, even though what he actually says flip-flops all over the place. Some of the supporting characters show promise, but all too often they're gone before they've had a chance. Meanwhile, Willis looks either confused or tired, and he's not the only one. Even a newscaster on television sounds bored while delivering the news about the gruesome quadruple murder. Gasoline Alley doesn't have enough fuel to make even that sound interesting.