Uma Thurman in âMission Zeroâ a Worthwhile 10 Minutes

For action fans, Uma Thurman (Kill Bill) is normally worth

spending an hour and a half with in a darkened movie theatre, so it shouldn’t

be too much for Pirelli to ask for its targeted performance tire

crowd to type www.pirellifilm.com into the web browser address field and enjoy her coy smile, fearful screams and bloodstained flesh in Pirelli Film’s latest 10 minute foray into cinematography, Mission Zero.

The short-format film is actually quite witty, and nowhere near as campy as the tire manufacturer’s previous attempt dubbed The Call and starring John Malkovich (Eragon, The Libertine) and Naomi Campbell (model), still available online for your viewing pleasure.

Compared to director Antoine Fuqua’s (Training Day, King Arthur) auto noir rendition Christine and The Exorcist rolled up in one, Mission Zero is an on the edge of your office chair on the lunch break, rock ‘em, sock ‘em car chase thriller.

Mission Zero and The Call aren’t the first short format films produced by an automotive related company, by the way. If you read these pages regularly you’ll have already heard about and probably seen BMW’s season’s worth of shorts dubbed The Hire, starring Clive Owen (Inside Man, Sin City, The Bourne Identity) and featuring a number of top rated celebrities including Gary Oldman (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Batman Begins, The Fifth Element) and Madonna, plus walk-ons by Marilyn Manson and Ray Liotta, and directed by the likes of Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain), Guy Ritchie (Revolver, Snatch), and John Frankenheimer (Reindeer Games, Ronin), among others, and as mentioned in a previous story, one of the most brilliant moments in short format automotive film, Volvo’s faked documentary about the fictional Swedish village of Dalaro, where a large proportion of residents had supposedly bought the automaker’s S40 all on the same day.

Director Kathryn Bigelow’s (Strange Days, Point Break) Mission Zero deserves praise for being a really engrossing 10 minute car chase, with more than a little adversity shot her way. After leaving her Beverly Hills mansion, Uma is forced to speed through Los Angeles in a pearlescent yellow PZero-shod Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder in order to escape assassins that materialize suddenly from every direction, trying to kill her.

Does the story relate a deep, hidden message about the environment, the war in Iraq or some other important topic of a day? Not at all, which is another reason to like it. It’s just plain fun, and pulled off by an action heroine most moviegoers have grown very fond of.

The previous film, The Call, was popular worldwide, reaching more than 5,000,000 internet viewers in 216 countries last year alone. The new film airs today, February 12, at www.pirellifilm.com. Enjoy 10 minutes during lunch to take this film in, and don’t forget to put on your headphones and turn up the volume.