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And so the whole film becomes about decoding what exactly makes Kowalski want to deck his car into two bulldozers, a story told through a handful of entirely unconnected flashbacks. There's a bit where he used to be a policeman? And a bit where he used to be a NASCAR driver who crashed? And a bit where him and some hippy chick are hanging out spooning in a beach shack? It turns out the scar-digging hippy chick was Kowalski's girlfriend, and as we learn, died moments later when she goes for a post-coital surf in the sea and gets hit by a wave—which, beyond choking on a pair of flares or being fatally ignited by a lava lamp, is the most 70s death ever.There's a school of thought among leading Vanishing Point scholars that says Kowalski isn't just avenging the death of his hippy girlfriend by slamming into two bulldozers with a hella sweet Dodge Charger, but is actually running away from the series of disappointments that mark his life as a former war veteran, a disgraced police officer and a crash-happy racing driver reduced to shuttling cars across country as a way of making ends meet. He is —in some kind of labored metaphor—driven towards death. To those people I say: You are totally overthinking Vanishing Point.
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