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| The flashy poster for Tony Scott's Days of Thunder doesn't exactly sell its star Tom Cruise short |
QUICK REVIEW:
The prince of racing and his ups and downs.
Thunder presents a thick story that's simultaneously a thin story, you might say. Tom Cruise (Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015)) is terrific from first shot, while Randy Quaid (Not Another Teen Movie (2001)) and Robert Duvall (True Confessions (1981)) yell and scream, respectively, while trotting around in the background in this dull case, which is an obvious attempt to make a new Top Gun (1986), only in new surroundings.
Nicole Kidman (Eyes Wide Shut (1999)) has charm as Cruise's love interest, - the two got married off-camera in 1990, (and divorced 11 years later), - and the two, understandably, have good chemistry here, but Kidman's role in Thunder is far beneath her talent. And that is a general problem for this weak, only slightly interesting serving of sports nonsense.
It was written by Robert Towne (Shampoo (1975)), with Cruise supplying story elements, and directed by the late English master filmmaker Tony Scott (The Hunger (1983)).
- Not much thunder in this vehicle.
Related reviews:
Tony Scott: Stoker (2013) - Chan-wook Park's over-styled American debut revolts and bores in turns (producer)
Déjà Vu (2006) - T. Scott cuts a helluva suspense-cake!
Domino (2005) - T. Scott's bounty-hunter biopic a complete misfire, mega-flop
Watch the original trailer for the film here
Cost: 60 mil. $
Box office: 157.9 mil. $
= Box office success
[Days of Thunder was released June 27 and runs 108 minutes. It was shot in Daytona and Charlotte, North Carolina from January - May 1990, going no less than 3 months over schedule. The shoot was fraught with problems and a team of producers, Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer, writer Towne and director Scott, who argued a lot and, reportedly especially the former three, increased the spendings drastically with outrageous production decisions like building a private gym for themselves, giving away designer dresses to woo women, building sets multiple times, throwing expensive parties and pressing cast and crew members to work (expensive) overtime. The result was a nearly doubled budget that could have posed a serious problem for them all. But the film opened #1 to 15.4 mil. $ in North America, where it grossed 82.6 mil. $ (52.3 % of the total gross). The film was Oscar-nominated for Best Sound, losing to Dances with Wolves (1990). It was also successful on video, making at least an additional 40 mil. $ there. - But the bloated budget and diminished quality of the film still makes its success much smaller than Top Gun's, which made back its budget almost 24 times, (Thunder only did so 2.6 times.) Days of Thunder is rotten at 38 % with a 4.8 critical average on Rotten Tomatoes.]
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