d. Lamont Johnson (1973)
Jeff Bridges will appear in pretty much anything these days, but there was a time when he had a very specific appeal, a lot of it based around his youthful, open faced appearance and total insouciance. That lack of concern was always difficult to read: was he smart or stupid; self-assured or disconnected; natural or wooden: was he even really there at all?
Here, he plays Elroy ‘Junior’ Jackson, a 'wild assed mountain boy' who is a prodigiously gifted driver and local enigma. Starting out by running moonshine (sticking it to the man is a vital element in these hicksploitation films), he needs to become a breadwinner when his Pa is imprisoned for bootlegging liquor, so takes his fast wheels to market, starting off in demolition derbies before progressing to stock car racing and, ultimately, the most pointless of all American sports, NASCAR. Junior is just about the best there’s ever been at driving quickly around in circles for hours on end, and the film ends with him holding aloft his first championship trophy.
Loosely based on 50s and 60s NASCAR legend, Junior Johnson, the script was derived from an Esquire magazine piece by Tom Wolfe. The original prose was kinetic and hyperbolic, full of colour and energy, a gleaming sports car with a tank full of pop art and rocket fuel. Sadly, the film is a rather clunky hybrid, powered by red diesel. At best, it’s rowdy and rambunctious, but is mainly light and inconsequential, largely down to Bridges under-written character and non-committal performance: Junior never really seems bothered, so why should we be?
No comments:
Post a Comment