Friday, February 19, 2010
GET UP AND GO
Today's movie was Francis Ford Coppola's
Tucker: the Man and His Dream (1988)
with Jeff Bridges as Tucker and Joan Allen as his wife. Christian Slater is one of the kids.
Coppola has cornered every gee whiz, can do trope from thirties movies to tell a fifties story about a man who dared to defy Detroit and invent a car that was safer and easier to drive to say nothing about fuel efficiency.
Mr. Deeds goes to Detroit.
While he failed on the outside, he won on the inside and with his supporters.
Jeff Bridges is perfect for this ode to positive thinking. Smiling through adversity, he whips the villain's ass in court and, when he loses the main chance with the car, he moves on to a new invention.
Coppola enriches the fuel mix with a stream of near over the top tricks of the trade. Screen splits, back to back sets that the camera merely pans (telephone conversations) and walk throughs.
It is fun.
One feature is that the villain, a corrupt Michigan senator, is played by Jeff's dad Lloyd. A nasty piece of work if there ever was one.
I liked it quite a bit. More than I expected. The cars are great. They are the real thing. 46 of the 50 cars made are still in service.
I will give it a 3 out of Netflix5.
Labels: films
