Great Movie; Watch Twice

Rating: Null/10 (13 September 2004)

This movie is so much like a good man--it's there just taken for granted, never listened too and called stupid. There have been lots of "complaints" posted where the person just didn't get all of the movie the first time. A small example is one comment about the car scene on the streets of Chicago. The commenter said a flaw in the scene was when the officer didn't take off after the cars traveling at 195 mph. Uh, in the movie the cops calls for back-up as he gets into his car. Personally I could suspend the disbelief that the cop couldn't catch up and I let it go. I know this is small, but I think it shows how people WANT this movie to be stupid. They see the cars and think, 'dumb white male'. They hear the music and think, 'stupid Nascar red necks'. Sly's biggest mistake, besides costume and his choice of make-up director, was not realizing he would have to suspend disbelief from the viewer that a good man's story, told and viewed from a male point of view, could be smart and have some worth.
Answers to some questions posted:
"Estella Warren is always at the track and this is never explained"........she is the fiancée of one of the drivers and as such is on pit lane. Again.......these scenes were filmed on pit lane minutes prior to the start of REAL races.
"Why is Estella Warren in Germany and Tokyo?" This is actually explained in the movie. Stallone's character gives the exposition at the end of the Chicago race scene. The other driver thought she would give him the "edge" he was looking for. Personally, I don't think it is that much of a stretch to think a man with money would spend it on an obviously gorgeous woman in the hopes of a "payoff". If the woman "belongs" to a competitor all the more reason. Call me crazy, but is that not what men do? Do they not say, to themselves at the very least, "See, I got your girl"?
I feel like audiences have been conditioned to Glamour/Cosmo exposition. This also has the effect, in a perverse irony, of attaching a default stereotype of and unsophisticated thinking to anyone who doesn't talk or act in the manner prescribed. This is evident when blatant visuals, like the long shot of Estella's arched feet with curled toes in the pool (female orgasm reference) are criticized. Do we really need a character saying, "That reminds me of when I gave a woman an orgasm. Gee I wish I could do the same for/to you?" If we put the same shot in a foreign film, it would be artistic and symbolic; maybe even genius, depending on the lighting. Because straight men are just stupid, right? That shot couldn't have any artistic merit; not in this movie. I mean there are racecars in it. Those type of people are Neanderthals, right? I mean you would have to suspend that disbelief before we as an audience would actually listen to anything this story would have to say, right?
Sly had the nerve to make a movie where the individual accepts their emotional adversary for who they are, or who they choose to be at the time, and rather than sulk or complain about it, they focus on bettering themselves. And as it turns out, that can be a good thing. God forbid you tell a story in a "straight male" form. Then it's stupid and trivial. Call me crazy but I enjoyed watching a woman who didn't chase after a man when he broke her heart. I enjoyed watching a man make a mistake and having the opportunity to fix it in a way other than the way in which Cosmo or Glamour tells us it should be fixed. I enjoyed watching two brothers "make-up" by letting go. I enjoyed SEEING these things instead of being told through dialogue exposition EVERY LAST DETAIL of the issue.
I also enjoyed the REAL LIFE footage of races. Apparently some people want to be fed, line by line, everything they should see and feel. If you can't look at real footage of a race and tell that they allow not only cars and teams on pit row and that all people down there aren't drivers, then you don't need to be watching a movie that reaches outside of your "norm".
This is a movie I come back to over and over. I just realized this weekend that the character of Gina is based on Sly's real ex-wife Bridgette Neilson (check out this season of Surreal Life, 2004, if you don't believe me). It is so uncanny once you get it. The sound is awesome in this movie, but then we have bumper stickers that say, 'I Love Jet Noise' here. If you like romance, sound, action, musical composition, different ways of looking at things and people watching, you will find all these things in this movie. But you may have to watch it twice.