U Turn (1997)

A broken car strands a small-time crook in an Arizona town where the sun seems to have curdled everybody's temper. Oliver Stone's abrasive colours, restless cutting and grotesque encounters turn the open desert into a feverish trap, not an invitation to escape. Sean Penn's mounting desperation gives the excess a human fuse. This is the abrasive option: sexual abuse, brutal violence and nasty humour are part of a deliberately unpleasant world, rather than incidental shocks.