Roadracers

Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.


At one solitary moment in this droning yabba-jabba kitsch flicker one of the supporting actors, John Hawkes’ lonely and latent Nixer speaks to O'Neal Compton playing a lowly diner cook and imparts a highly perceptive philosophically existential observation using a single French fried potato for illustration: “Looky here, J.T. From here to eternity is the time before I was born, and from here to eternity is the time after I die. “And this... is the only chance I get... to do it.”  The moment stops the forward lumbering motion of the story cold, and brings up the question of the mind at work behind this film.

In some nebulous 1950s Southern California town, Dude Delaney (David Arquette) spends a lot of time tooling around in his 55 Chevy out-running the Police and going up against the cop’s protected kids.  His girl Donna (Salma Hayek) is Mexican, adopted by a white couple and the two are constantly terrorized by the local Police Chief Sarge (William Sadler) who uses his own son Teddy Leather (Jason Wiles) to goad Dude into breaking the law so he can arrest him.  As Teddy rises to his father’s demands he resorts to extreme measures that bring him and Dude into confrontation and causes the sacrifice of many of those close to dude and what he holds dear.

Shot entirely in 13 days after Wes Craven dropped out to direct the New Nightmare flick, the million-dollar feature Roadracers is a jokey testament to the integrity and determination that marked the early B-films of the studio period, and if you start to wonder just why you are wasting time with it, think about the intentions behind the project.

Director Robert Rodriguez has built a reputation with film school grads and dropouts alike because he touts his disdain for big-budget film productions, claiming that he can make a decent movie for a fraction of what someone like Brian DePalma makes a movie for.  He’s right because Rodriguez has a down-to-earth attitude in both his tastes and his abilities… but his films all exhibit this baseness, and if you are looking for polish and pizzazz, you probably won’t find it with this director.

This movie is loud, flat-footed, obvious, and subversive.  You may find yourself getting ahead of the flick on nearly every plot point- if you do it means that you’re far too sophisticated for this kind of retro throw-back.  That’s okay because in the words of Pauline Kael “Movies are so rarely great art that if we cannot appreciate great trash we have very little reason to be interested in them.”

You may find yourself repeating this to yourself after the screen fades, thinking about near fetishistic moments in the film like the way David Arquette’s Dude Delaney applies grease to his hair from a nearby can, or the way that William Sadler’s Sarge fondles the hot-dog lunch his mother has made for him and proudly shares with his cop partner, or the way a girl’s beehive hairdo destructs during a car race.  I guess there a better ways to waste 90 minutes… 

Recommend this product? Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older