DAYS OF THUNDER (1990)
Directed by Tony Scott
Screenplay by Robert Towne; story by Towne and Tom Cruise
Well, we’re in for 107 minutes of NASCAR, so let’s get into the spirit of the thing, shall we? Put on that denim baseball cap with the Confederate stars-and-bars patch sewn on the front, Polident your partial upper, and chug down a 64-ounce waxed paper cup full of flat, body temperature Budweiser. There.
Gentlemen...Start your movie!
We’re at Daytona, where Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer is whizzing around in his little car, laughing as other drivers crash. Cut to a farm in South Carolina, where Randy Quaid tries to convince Robert Duvall to build him a race car, while Robert attempts to run Randy over with a tractor and spray his crushed skull with liquid fertilizer. Neither one is succeeding.
Randy and Robert show up at the track, to meet and evaluate Randy’s new driver, Tom Cruise. Tom has no experience driving stock cars, and will have to prove himself to a skeptical NASCAR establishment by demonstrating how handsome he is. Tom is aided in this task by the director, who casts a lot of weird-faced hillbilly types in the supporting roles.
Robert agrees to build a car for Tom, and quickly leaves to go have a Flashdance-like welding montage with his crew of greasy, unattractive crackers.
Thirty seconds later, the car is finished, and we’re in the middle of a race, where Henry: Portrait of a Bumper Car Operator proceeds to ram repeatedly into Tom’s rear end, expressing some deep-seated urge that only Freud could figure out. Robert tells Tom that Henry’s only "rubbing" him, and adds, "Rubbing is racing." So apparently, every weekday the Tokyo subway system is packed with NASCAR drivers.
Tom wins his first race and gets drunk. He reveals that dad was a con man who disgraced the family name, and Tom’s trying to redeem himself and find a new father figure, which makes Robert shift uncomfortably in his seat, and furtively eye the exit. Meanwhile, Tom seeks to heal the child within by having sex with a hooker while the drunken pit crew looks on.
In our next race, Tom and Henry crash, and are airlifted to Supermodel Memorial Hospital, where Tom is placed in the car of Dr. Nicole Kidman. Nicole is a distinguished neurosurgeon, even though she hasn’t had her first period yet, and makes the Candy Stripers look wizened.
Now the movie becomes a delightful romp, as Tom mistakes Nicole for a prostitute. During the examination of his brain, he puts her hand on his stick shift, but she’s repulsed and leaves (Nicole was absent from medical school the day they covered the stick shift). Tom, feeling unloved, splays on the bed in his revealing hospital gown, with his legs spread to the camera. Out in the lobby, the concession stand reports a sudden drop in hot dog sales.
Tom is released, and asks Nicole for a date as she’s getting into her car. She declines, while discreetly attempting to slam his penis in the door. Instead, Tom winds up going out on a date with Henry: Portrait of a Rebound Relationship.
Eventually, Nicole realizes that if she wants any additional screen time, she’s going to have to date Tom. So she cuts cheerleader practice and flies down South, where she flings the little fellow into a wall and sexes him up.
The director cuts away rather quickly from this scene, so they go visit Henry, and watch him pass out. It’s now obvious that Henry isn’t handsome enough to provide Tom with sufficient competition on the racetrack, so they bring in Cary Elwes, while Nicole must break the sad news that he is now Henry: Portrait of a Subdural Hematoma.
Meanwhile, Tom has lost his nerve, and freaks out during a race when Cary bumps him. He responds by chasing a taxi in his rental car, while Nicole panics and loses her fake American accent. Afterwards, she gives Tom the Big Speech about Courage, Denial, and To Thine Own Self Be True. She ends by saying, "Go to hell, you (unintelligible) son-of-a-bitch! You made me sound like a doctor!" But this is unfair, since he actually made her sound like an out-of-her-depth actress playing Polonius as a hot Australian teenager.
Tom, inspired by Nicole’s nearly incomprehensible speech, tells Henry that his brain is leaking, and he ought to get that looked at, so it’s back to Supermodel Memorial.
Meanwhile, Randy fires Tom and hires Cary, when he realizes that blondes have more fun. Henry asks Tom to drive his car at Daytona. Cary is sponsored by Hardees. Tom is sponsored by MelloYello. If they crash, they’re going to produce a fairly disgusting Meal Deal.
Finally, the Big Race is on. As the cars roar around the track, Tom’s face becomes caked with oil and grease, until he looks like Al Jolson in The Jazz Singer; however, his teeth remain startlingly white. In the stands, meanwhile, exhaust fumes mix with the smell of menthol cigarettes and gardenia-scented toilet water.
When you look at all this, it makes you proud to be an American. Oh sure, we have to import oil from the Mid-East, musicals from Great Britain, and ingenues from Australia; but when it comes to Circus Maximus-style spectacles designed to stupefy the tobacco-chewing proletariat, the United States is entirely self-sufficient.
So, what did this movie teach us? Seriously, I need some lessons for the book, and I'm too tired to think of any right now.
