Days of Thunder (1999, DVD)

The late Don Simpson and his partner Jerry Bruckheimer understand Hollywood perfectly. They also understand movie audiences just about as well. They know how to take a story, add the elements that the movie public enjoys, then slap it up on the big screen to present a story that movie audiences will shell out the bucks to see.

After Simpson's death, Bruckheimer has continued to offer top notch summer fare. But, this is definitely NOT the best movie that the producing duo has had to offer.

Cashing in on the success of 1985's Top Gun, Don and Jerry re-hired Tom Cruise to play race car driver Cole Trickle (where the hell did they come up with THAT name?) in this adventure that takes us not into the atmosphere in supersonic jets, but on the Nascar circuit, a little bit slower, but no less potentially detrimental to one's health.

Nascar racing is dangerous...all you have to do is pick up any post race paper and read about the injuries and fatalities resulting from the crashes on the field. This film does a good job of capturing the intensity of the racing and the horror of wiping out on the track.

Unfortunately, it's a formula plot like Top Gun's. Arrogant race car driver wins a couple races...arrogant race car driver crashes...humbled race car driver returns to the track after recuperating and falls in love with lady doctor.

Okay, there ARE some additional plot elements and intriguing characters here, too. But if you're going to watch this movie for the human elements, you'd be better off watching something else. Watch this movie for the fast cars and the auto racing. Those sequences are much more compelling.

The characterizations in this movie fall pretty flat. The only roles that really have any meat on them in this story are, of course, Cruise's Trickle and crusty Robert Duvall, who plays Trickle's sideline mechanic, Harry Hogge. These two get the best scenes together, unfortunately they're few and far between.

Cruise captures the right intensity for Trickle, who's basically a carbon copy of Maverick, from Top Gun. He starts out thinking he's the best, but learns that life can deal out a bum hand just as quickly to the "lucky" ones and he's hurt by the revelation.

Duvall is a consummate actor, who's taken his career into a different direction in recent years. He started out in great dramatic fare, like The Godfather and The Great Santini, for which he won an Oscar, but in recent years, he's been cashing in on more action-oriented fare. Days of Thunder does ONE thing well. It proves that even in the worst of films, Duvall can come out on top.

Utterly wasted, here, is Nicole Kidman as Dr. Lewicky, Trickle's love interest. Not only are the love sequences forced, I found it difficult to accept the rapid development of her relationship with Cole. Certain sequences work to push them apart, yet the "rational" Lewicky stays with Trickle despite his inability to "grow up". It's kind of like Kidman's real life relationship with Cruise.

Other characters fare less well. Michael Rooker, who plays Cruise's chief rival, Rowdy Yates (another doozy of a name, if I ever heard one) has the beginnings of good character development, but we don't get to know enough about him to really care about his post crash condition. When he turns his race car over to Cole for the final race, I just couldn't really care less about the reasons why.

Overall, though, the racing scenes in this film are the best. It's like the producers shot great race footage, then decided to work a plot in around the racing. If you like to watch fast cars driving around the tracks, this is a decent film. Just fast forward through the dismal character development in the other scenes and you'll enjoy it more.

For a film about fast cars, this is one of the slowest films I've ever had to sit through.