I'm just going to put this off the table right now.
If you go into this movie expecting lots of racing, then you might be disappointed.
There's racing to be had. Two or three races; 'quite a few of them that come about towards the end' but most of this kind film is a simi-light romance between several different people. Who spend all their time either at a Holiday Inn or in this one really nice restaurant that keeps jumping between being a cheap entertaining dancing bar and a sophisticated smoking Lounge.
The film also deceives you by claiming James Caan will be the biggest star. Maybe he got paid the most, but he certainly isn't the most prevalent person in the movie.
That technically belongs to Skip Ward (Dan) he plays this out of country racing kid who wants to show his chops in the big league and once given the opportunity proved to be pretty good at the game.
Then there's this whole thing where Dan and James Caan character (Mike) get upset at each other because of these relationship they're having with these girls.
My problem with the whole thing is all these relationships just come out of nowhere, happened incredibly fast.
I can't really feel for anybody especially as they keep jumping back and forth between each other. It's not a love triangle it's a love star of David. There several different relationships with different people and they keep Crossing in and out with each other.
It can make things a little confusing and it can make them incredibly dramatic.
You'd be forgiven if you thought this movie was something of a soap opera. It's just so much drama between all these people and for most of the film it doesn't even matter it's like a friendly drama. That is until the end when Mike loses his freaking mind and he tries killing Dan in a car accident.
There's a big thing you can see in this movie.
Car accidents.
They had a lot of actual footage of different races and purposely set up scenarios made by NASCAR for the film. So you get all these weird shots of 120 (some higher) mile an hour Vehicles smashing into each other or bashing into the side of a road and it's some intense stuff. You forget just how fast these hunks of metal can fly when given the right opportunities and put in the right hands.
George Takei is also in this film. He's not there for very long though. You keep showing up from time to time and you think he's going to have a bigger presence. He's one of the three main guys at the beginning of the film.
But then he just kind of Fizzles out along with the original plot of the movie and where I thought the whole thing was gonna to go.
I had this whole setup for a love story involving Mike and this other girl who comes down from California to marry this other race car driver. But the guy dies in the first few minutes of the film so now she's trapped in this crappy part of America trying to get back home with little to no money to her name.
She also has this illusion that she's cursed cuz every guy she's ever had an interest in has seemed to have died. And I thought the film was going to go into a whole thing with that or she learns to get over her superstitions or fall in love with James Caan. A guy who also live dangerously and almost dies. it could have been that typical story of a man learning to balance his Ambitions for his career over the love and affection of his girlfriend. Come to think of it it would have been a pretty cliched story and what they ultimately went with was more entertaining.
That's the one thing I'll give this film. It succeeded my expectations in what I expected from it. I was thinking it would be a run-of-the-mill fun but kind of basic cars racing movie.
But instead it's this big drama filled with dancing and music and a bunch of people just kind of hanging around and talking.
It's an interesting movie. It lures you in with action and keeps you with engagement. It rides that line between suspense and corniness.
Which I think was ultimately achieved with James Caan's kind of dower down-on-his-luck acting that he's always able to betray in any movie.
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