Days of Thunder (1999, DVD)

For those who are not fans of NASCAR racing, this film could possibly get you interested in the sport. That was one of the main ideas back in 1990 when Days of Thunder was released. Combine Tom Cruise with Robert Duvall, some fast action with race cars, and you'll help spark an interest in the populace of America for NASCAR racing. The formula worked well for the Navy when Cruise starred in Top Gun, why not NASCAR?

The film worked, just not to the extent of Top Gun. No sport draws bigger crowds than NASCAR races, and there is good reason for this. But that has little to do with the movie, so I'll move on.

Days of Thunder is the story of a driver Cole Trickle, who suddenly shows when a team needs a new driver. He knows nothing about driving NASCAR, and has a classic line where he explains he learned everything from watching NASCAR on ESPN, "They have excellent coverage." Makes you want to just walk on down to the track and get a try out yourself.

Tom Cruise is the pretty boy driver who is gaining in popularity quickly, while he continues to wreck race cars. In fact, one of the main aspects in this film is car wrecks. NASCAR is not all about wrecking cars. NASCAR is not all about the big accident that occasionally happens. Yet, Days of Thunder revolves around accidents.

The conflict between Trickle and rival driver Rowdy Burns largely takes place on the track, they each take turns ramming each others' car, spinning the other one around and putting each other into the wall. This type of behavior is unacceptable in NASCAR. People's well being is at stake, vendettas where drivers begin ramming each other would never be accepted on the track. Both these drivers would likely be banned from racing if they behaved this way. Finally the big wreck does happen. It is neither Rowdy Burns nor Cole Trickle that started it, they drive into the big one that happens ahead of them. They ram each other, and end up in the hospital. The wreck ends Rowdy's career, introduces Cruise to Nicole Kidman, who is his doctor, and brings Rowdy and Cole together as friends for the first time.

Robert Duvall plays Harry Hogge crew chief for Cole Trickle. He has had a driver die in one of his cars. So his reputation isn't the greatest, people wonder if he built the car without certain safety parts in order to make it go faster, or did the driver have a heart attack before he hit the wall? We don't know, and this is a ghost that haunts Harry. Harry wants to win, and he knows he still has the ability to set up a race car better than anyone else, he just needs to be able to prove it to everyone else. Cole isn't making his life any easier because he keeps tearing up race cars, and doesn't know the first thing about telling his crew chief what is wrong with the car.

After Cole Trickle finally gets cleared to race again, him and the doctor fall for each other, and Cole has to find the will to race again. He gets scared racing, and now needs the support of Harry and his doctor, in order to get the nerve back up to really push his car and himself to the limits. Throw into the mix a the nervous car owner, who is afraid of losing his business if the racing team doesn't hurry up and get a major sponsor, and a new replacement driver who drivers Cole's car while he is injured. This replacement driver is even cockier than Trickle, and takes the place of Rowdy Burns as the new nemesis of Trickle. Apparently the producers feel the film needed another antagonist in the film to try to wreck more cars with.

Finally Cole gets his nerve back and off they go to Daytona, which seems to be the dream of all the drivers, to win at Daytona. I bet you can't guess what happens at Daytona.

The film itself is an enjoyable one to watch, but one which will leave you saying, NO WAY! Many times. Often a car is rammed up against the wall, and it doesn't even slow down much, or it is spun out, and quickly the driver is turned around, having lost only 2 or 3 positions on the track, and a moment or two later he is right back up challenging for the lead. AS IF! The racing scenes are pure Hollywood fantasy.

The sound in Days Of Thunder is outstanding. If you have surround sound you need to hook it up and watch this film. The cars sound like they are right behind you, gaining and blowing right past. It really is an excellent film for the sound alone.

A wonderful thing about this film is the race cars are still mostly the older Chevrolet Lumina Z34 body. They looked much nicer than today's Monte Carlo. This film actually helped revolutionize how ESPN covered NASCAR races. They went and got more cameras for more angles and did their best to cover every bit of the track. Slowly, interest picked up. Now, NASCAR is one of the richest and largest attended sporting events in America. Perhaps the film worked afterall.