Is Go a Christmas Movie? Why Doug Liman’s Cult Classic Deserves Holiday Canon Status

In the list of all-time Christmas movies, one that always gets overlooked is Doug Liman’s Go.
Wait—how is Go a Christmas movie, you might be asking?

Well, despite not being a movie about Christmas per se, it actually all takes place over one VERY eventful Christmas Eve in Los Angeles, with the film revolving around a couple of loosely connected groups as they share a somewhat seedy holiday.

There are two grocery store clerks looking to score by selling ecstasy pills at a Christmas rave, a group of bros who head to Vegas to make trouble, two gay actors working a sting with a cop, and more. It barely made a dime in theaters, but it proved to be a great kickoff to what would later emerge as one of the greatest years in modern cinema history: 1999.

So let’s take a deep dive into Doug Liman’s cult classic.

From Swingers to Go: Doug Liman’s Indie Breakout

Flash back to the year 1996 and the release of a micro-budget comedy called Swingers. While now a hugely iconic indie hit, Swingers was made for only $250K and came from the pen of a struggling young actor named Jon Favreau.

Deciding to write his own ticket—much like other burgeoning actors of the era did, most famously Matt Damon and Ben Affleck with Good Will Hunting (although Swingers predates it by a year)—the movie also proved to be the big break for star Vince Vaughn.

While many look back at it now as one of the great Sundance success stories, it actually did not play that festival. Sure, it feels like the kind of movie that should have, but it was never even submitted, as the producers didn’t consider it a serious enough film. They were planning to release it themselves in a regional Los Angeles pattern, but a buyer’s screening late in the year caused a sensation, and Miramax bought it for $5 million.

Ironically, the film wasn’t a particularly big commercial success, earning about $4.5 million—which was good for an indie, but less than Miramax paid for it. Still, it was seen by the right people, and everyone involved got a huge boost.

Vince Vaughn became a hot leading man, landing a co-starring role in The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Jon Favreau ended up being cast on Friends as a love interest for Monica and soon after showed up in Deep Impact.

How Go Came Together

As for Doug Liman, he did get a few studio offers to direct movies, but he opted to stay in the indie zone when he was approached by writer John August with the script for Go.

Initially pitched as a short film, August expanded the script to feature length. At the time, August was a rising talent known mostly as a much-in-demand script doctor—meaning he often rewrote movies but received no credit. Yet he was known around town, and the combination of him and Liman was enough to secure the movie a modest $3.5 million budget, which is unthinkable now for a film shot entirely on location in Los Angeles.

Again, Liman’s work had been seen by enough power players in Hollywood to make Go a hot project despite its low budget. Given that it centered on a bunch of characters in their twenties and was exceedingly edgy, it was a movie many young actors wanted to do to shake up their image.

The Cast: On the Brink of Fame

The biggest name in the cast when it came out was Katie Holmes, who plays Claire, a supermarket cashier left as collateral with a hunky drug dealer played by a pre-fame Timothy Olyphant, while her best friend Ronna tries to make a mint selling E to ravers.

Holmes, of course, was a huge rising star thanks to Dawson’s Creek, the hottest teen show on TV. All of the stars of that series were able to land movies, with Holmes having appeared in the teen horror flick Disturbing Behavior the year before. This role was meant to change her image—somewhat.

Yet the juiciest role in the movie was reserved for Sarah Polley. At the time, Polley wasn’t especially well known in the U.S., but she was a household name in Canada. She had starred in the long-running series Road to Avonlea and also had a standout role in Atom Egoyan’s The Sweet Hereafter.

Go would remain one of her few American starring roles, as she often turned down projects to work on low-budget Canadian fare, eventually finding her greatest fame as an acclaimed director.

Risks, Representation, and ’90s Reality

Probably the most controversial segment revolved around the two gay TV actors, played by Jay Mohr and Scott Wolf. While Mohr, having acted on SNL, was likely comfortable taking on a risqué role, the movie was a huge risk for Wolf, who was starring on Party of Five at the time.

Back then, it was considered risky for straight male actors to play gay characters, lest they be identified that way. Same-sex kisses were still taboo; in Philadelphia, despite playing a gay lawyer, you never see Tom Hanks kiss Antonio Banderas on the mouth.

In today’s era, that may be hard to believe—but that was the reality. Wolf later said the script for Go was so cool that every young actor at the time wanted to be in it.

Why Go Failed in Theaters

Despite all this, Go almost didn’t happen at all, as financing fell through at the eleventh hour—apparently due to the lack of a bankable white male lead. Sony ultimately stepped in, ballooning the budget to roughly $20 million, which explains why the film looks so slick.

So why did it still fizzle when it hit theaters in April 1999?

I can speak to this firsthand. I was seventeen at the time and an avid moviegoer. I remember seeing the film heavily advertised on TV and in theaters, yet I had zero interest in seeing it. The teen TV cast turned me off completely. I was sick to death of Dawson’s Creek and Party of Five, and you would’ve had to put a gun to my head to get me into a theater to watch a movie starring their cast.

Early reviews didn’t help, with critics dismissing it as “Tarantino-lite,” a lazy insult often thrown at indie crime films of the era. Sony’s aggressive push of the soundtrack—including “Steal My Sunshine”—made it seem like just another disposable teen crime movie.

The Matrix had opened the week before and sucked up all the oxygen. The following week, Never Been Kissed opened and became a major hit. Go never had a chance.

Why Go Endures

Yet Go eventually became a cult classic. I caught it on Canada’s HBO equivalent, The Movie Network, in the winter of 2000 and was shocked by how good it was. I watched it repeatedly and quickly realized I’d missed the boat, as had many others.

It became one of the first films released on DVD in a deluxe special edition and sold extremely well. Liman emerged from the film with enough heat to land The Bourne Identity.

In hindsight, Go stands the test of time as one of the definitive ’90s movies, perfectly capturing the vibe of being a twenty-something on the make in that era. Kids were different then. Most of us didn’t care about politics—we just wanted to party and, yes, do light drugs.

With its killer soundtrack, hot cast, and relentless energy, Go previewed a cinematic wave that would crest later that year with Fight Club, Three Kings, Magnolia, and Being John Malkovich.

In many ways, Go got there first—and it deserves to be remembered as one of 1999’s true classics.

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