Days of Thunder
Tags: revenge, comedy

Plot synopsis:
Cole Trickle is a young racer from Eagle Rock, California, with years of experience in open-wheel racing, winning championships in the United States Auto Club (USAC). His goal was to win the Indianapolis 500, but realizes that "You can't win at Indy without a great car and my name isn't Andretti or Unser". He is recruited by Chevrolet dealership tycoon Tim Daland to race for his team in the NASCAR Winston Cup Series. Daland also convinces former crew chief and car builder Harry Hogge to come out of retirement and lead Cole's pit crew. After Trickle sets a fast time in a private test at Charlotte, Hogge builds him a new Chevrolet Lumina to drive in the Winston Cup, though the season has already started.
During his first few races, Cole has difficulty adjusting to the larger NASCAR stock cars and communicating with his crew while being intimidated on the track by Winston Cup Champion Rowdy Burns; this results in Cole not finishing the races, mostly due to crashes and blown engines. After discovering that Cole does not understand the common terminology used by NASCAR teams, Harry puts him through rigorous training. This pays off at the Darlington race, when Cole uses a slingshot maneuver from the outside line to overtake Rowdy and win his first race.
The rivalry between Cole and Rowdy intensifies throughout the season until tragedy strikes. At the Firecracker 400 in Daytona, both drivers are seriously injured after their cars are destroyed in a multi-car wreck. While recovering from his injuries in Daytona Beach, Cole develops a romantic relationship with Dr. Claire Lewicki, a neurosurgeon at Halifax Hospital who was senior doctor on duty when he was brought in after his crash and who was attending to his health. At the same time, NASCAR president Big John, brings Rowdy and Cole together in a meeting and warns them that he and his sport will no longer tolerate any hanky-panky from the two rivals. Afterwards, Cole and Rowdy go out to lunch together by Big John's persuasion, and settle their differences by banging rental cars on the beach. Cole and Rowdy change from bitter rivals to close friends.
As Cole is still undergoing therapy, Daland hires hot-shot rookie Russ Wheeler as a substitute to fill the seat. Weeks later, Cole returns to active duty, with Daland now fielding two teams – the second car driven by Wheeler which Harry disapproves of. Though Cole shows signs of his old self, he now finds himself in a rivalry with his new teammate with no help from his inexperienced owner. At North Wilkesboro, Russ gets dirty on the pit path and pulls his car into his pit box (directly in front of Cole's pit box) diagonally so as to block Cole from exiting his box until Russ's pit stop was complete. Russ also forces Cole into the outside wall in a move on the last lap causing Cole to spin and finish down in the standings. Russ goes on to win the race. In retaliation, Cole crashes his car into Russ's car following the race, resulting in Cole and Harry being fired by Daland.
When Rowdy discovers that he has to undergo brain surgery to fix a broken blood vessel, he asks Cole to drive his car at the Daytona 500, so his sponsors will pay for the year. Cole reluctantly agrees and convinces Harry to return as crew chief again. Hours prior to the race, Harry discovers metal in the oil pan, a sign of engine failure, so he manages to have Daland provide him a new engine. During the race, Cole's car suffers a malfunctioning transmission after being spun out by Russ, but the combined efforts of his pit crew, as well as those working for Daland, manage to fix the problem and get him back on the lead lap. This sets the tone for a final showdown between Cole and Russ. On the final lap, Russ predicts that Cole will attempt his signature slingshot maneuver from outside, but Cole tricks him with a crossover, overtaking him from the inside to win his first Daytona 500.
Cole drives into victory lane, where he and Claire kiss passionately while they celebrate with his pit-crew. As he looks around to see where Harry is, he spots him sitting alone on a concrete barrier near the teams pit stall. Cole walks up to Harry to ask for him to say something, but Harry is lost for words. Cole asks Harry to walk to with him and Harry agrees. As he begins to walk, Harry turns to Cole smiling and challenges him to a foot race to victory lane, and they both begin to race.

Review: Tom Cruise is good as the daftly named racing driver Cole Trickle and the ever reliable Robert Duvall offers classy support.
The music is of course all important in a movie like this and it has a pretty good soundtrack including Maria McKee's Number One hit Show Me Heaven, but again Top Gun had a much better soundtrack with Hans Zimmmer no match for Harold Faltermeyer.
Cruise plays Cole Trickle, a very cocky and smooth indy car driver that lost his ride and decided to head to NASCAR with team owner Tim Daland,(Randy Quaid), and be coached by legendary crew chief Harry Hogge (Robert Duvall).
Over the years, Tom Cruise had developed into a fine actor, and when coupled with Robert Duvall (in a spectacular performance) and a surprising Randy Quaid, Days of Thunder becomes a film which gets pretty much any guy involved in it.I personally hate NASCAR, but still I find this film absolutely riveting, and every time I watch it, I suddenly have a desire to go race my car down the highway.
Hans Zimmer does an effective job with his second Cruise film in two years (Rain Man was the other), and The Spencer Davis Group's Gimme Some Lovin' makes some plotless racing scenes worth watching.The script, penned by Bob Towne, is far more clever than the average action movie and actually creates some serious character depth for Cole and Rowdy, although Cary Elwes' character seems excessively evil.But, all in all, this is an action movie that works for Cruise fans, even if they don't like action movies.
But secondly it was reported that on the set of The Color of Money, co-star Paul Newman got Cruise interested in auto racing so you put those two things together, Days of Thunder was almost a film that had to be made.The film certainly has the feel of NASCAR to it and it takes its place along side such racing classics as Grand Prix, The Racers and Paul Newman's own film, Winning.
That's the way he and Duvall complement each other although it's not an easy relationship.Days of Thunder is also the film on which Tom met Mrs. Cruise number two, Nicole Kidman.
This is an excellent film about the trials of youth and the power of forgiveness.Tom Cruise's depiction of race car driver Cole Trickle is a spot-on reinterpretation of Orson Welles' character from Citizen Kane.
There were other fun sequences in the movie, like when Cole Trickle is crashing his car every week and when his crew played a prank on him after winning his first race.
Not bad; not good.Racing fans tell me there wasn't a lot of realism with this and actual NASCAR events - mainly involving sponsorship - back then, but I was looking an entertaining film....and I like Robert Duvall as actor and don't mind gazing at Nicole Kidman (who can also act.) Michael Rooker and Randy Quaid usually portray interesting people, too.It's basically a story about a guy who wants to prove himself on the race track, and I have no problem with that.
But will Cole be able to overcome the physical and mental scars that he got.The comedian Rich Hall did a great routine once where he summed up the films of Tom Cruise by basically saying that each of them involves him being great at his job (pilot, bartender, driver) before suffering a crisis of confidence but meeting a beautiful lady who helps him over it in time to come good  hilarious in the telling because he was right and, true to form, Days of Thunder sets its stall out in the same way.
That the plot is formulaic (father/son stuff, macho posturing, love interest, final big race etc) and it is a bit tiring at times because it is nothing new and it produces large sags during the film.
The racing stuff is fun, noisy and fast which I suppose is what most of its audience want; but this is still not a great action movie but kudos to Scott for managing to make a load of cars going round a circular track appear exciting.The cast is more impressive on paper than they are in reality.
Everything seems to be made of cardboard, including the actors, the film is so bad it made Nicole Kidman fall in love with Tom Cruise.
pretty boy comes to NASCAR, lucks into a good team, and convinces himself he is the greatest thing on four wheels, despite his complete lack of understanding of the relationship between car mechanicals and the need for talent.
Cars are boring so a movie featuring car racing isn't my gallon of four star but there was nothing else on so I decided to watch DAYS OF THUNDER regardless In many ways DAYS OF THUNDER is similar to TOP GUN .
I mean, come on, Cole Trickle is bad enough (sounds like a gay hero's alter ego), but look at the rest of the names listed in this film: Harry Hogge, Claire Lewicki, Tim Daland, Russ Wheeler, Rowdy Burns, Big John, Buck Bretherton, Waddell, Aldo Bennedetti, Harlem Hoogerhyde...It sounds like the screenwriter was too lazy to look up commonly used names so he just used his daughter's bedtime book: Harlem Hoogerhyde?
Of course old-time crew chief Robert Duvall (making a perfect appearance as usual) soon realizes that the cocky Cruise is an out-of-this-world driver, but also discovers that the youngster really has a minimal knowledge of anything that has to do with cars other than driving.
It showcases great actors such as Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Robert Duvall, Randy Quaid, Micheal Rooker and Cary Elwes.
The answer to that question is obvious--producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer, director Tony Scott, and superstar Tom Cruise, as they reunite after Top Gun for this Loud, Engine roaring racing romance.
Nicole Kidman, and Tom Cruise once again hit it off in the Movies, but by this time they were together in real life too.
As such, the chemistry between the two was much greater in this film than in Top Gun. Cole Trickle (Tom Cruise) must realize that driving stock-cars is different than driving indy cars, just as much as veteran stock-car racer Harry Hogge (Robert Duvall), must realize when building the car for Trickle.
While they are correct from one standpoint (there is no way a car going 190 mph can just decide to "put a driver in the wall"), I think many overlook the fact that this is the only big time movie centered around NASCAR racing that has been released in years.
Yeah, Top Gun is the one that made all the very BIG bucks back in 1986 and put Tony Scott and Tom Cruise on the map in bigger ways then they had been before (not to mention producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer), but somehow, much as with De Palma/Pacino with Scarface and Carlito's Way, the follow-up seemed to probably be the actual better film of the two.
Well, in some ways yes, and in other ways not so much.I give the production this: it moves fast and slick, and whenever cars are on the track it's visually compelling and exciting as the filmmakers know how to cut stuff together for Fast Impact (lest not forget the camera-work, filled with colors and smoke and cool contours, even a shot with Nicole Kidman standing at one point on the side of the frame is great to look at).
And the casting here is fantastic; and forget Cruise, how about Robert Duvall (has he ever been anything less than solid, and here he's actually giving this conventional Trainer-cum-Mentor some soul), or Nicole Kidman (who gets really some of the best lines in the film), or Michael Rooker (by now something of an underrated character actor national treasure, and here imbuing an a-hole with a lot of sympathy and pathos)?
There may be some stakes, like for Rooker's character, yet for Cruise there's not much there that makes it feel like 'Oh no, s***'s getting real here!' In other words, Days of Thunder has some genuinely good stuff to it, and it has some personality and verve and, for a couple of moments, sex appeal in that, uh, late 80's/early 90's style (and hey, this was the movie Cruise and Kidman met after all, so you can see the chemistry as white hot as they come).
With a great supporting cast consisting of Robert Duvall, Nicole Kidman, Michael Rooker, Randy Quaid and John.C.Rielly, this movie is simply amazing.
Now this movie is about a hot-shot race-car driver named Cole Trickle.
Days of Thunder gave birth to the sparkling chemistry between once upon a time two of the most memorable on-screen and off-screen couples Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman.The story revolves around a young and smashing, auto racing rookie, Cole Trickle (Tom Cruise), who, after trying in the American open wheel ranks, seeks to grab a win on the NASCAR circuit.
I had been reading up on producer Don Simpson, and realized that not only is this movie another Simpson-Bruckheimer production with Tom Cruise starring and Tony Scott directing, but it actually has a screenplay by Robert Towne!
Every major plot point is the same, from the Cruise character's buddy being taken out of the action by an accident(Michael Rooker now instead of Anthony Edwards), to Cruise falling for a smart, professional, tough, much taller beauty(Nicole Kidman this time instead of Kelly McGillis), to Cruise having to overcome a confidence problem and get back in the saddle(helped along by Robert Duvall here instead of Tom Skerrit), to even trotting out another tall, blond, crew-cut nemesis for him to defeat(Cary Elwes this time instead of Val Kilmer).
Let's get this straight: I have been, almost from birth, a great fan of auto racing of all kinds (although, admittedly, I've grown to like NASCAR in particular less and less in recent years as it's become just a little bit too big for its own good).
Sure, Grand Prix and Le Mans both have some awesome action shots and some really cool cars, but the stories are dead in the water.And yet Days of Thunder makes both of those earlier films look like great art.
This film sees Tom Cruise playing Cole Trickle, a successful Californian race car driver who wishes to switch to stock-cars.
Continuing my plan to watch every Tom Cruise movie in order, I come to Days Of Thunder (1990)Plot In A Paragraph: Cole Trickle (Cruise) a young hot shot stock car driver, gets his chance to compete at the top level Cruise does not make it 3 in a row, following on from Rain Man and Born On The Fourth Of July, this movie is a let down.
If there wasn't a Top Gun before, this would have been a nice flop.With Top Gun in mind (the resemblance is obvious, producers wanted a similar film with a different set, it makes this funny to watch.Exaggerated skin color and setup tints, repeated close ups on Tom's pretty and sad/hurt/cocky face, 'fast action' car race scenes, exactly the same receipt as it's predecessor.
Sadly, producers forgot two items: first, the love story (sigh), and second, if you can digest the fighter plane questionable acrobatic/fight scenes, it is much harder for Daytona fans to accept the lack of realism of a real race car.The film pace is quite well sustained throughout the film.Nicole is not acting.
Wealthy Tim Daland (Randy Quaid) brings in newcomer Cole Trickle (Tom Cruise) to race his car.
It is a sports (NASCAR) drama - it also has romance and a lot of action with a pretty good story too.I personally don't think this is Tom Cruise's best film nor his best work but it is a movie that will keep you entertained - even if you are not a big race car fan.I never figured I would like Days of Thunder - but I did enjoy the film (similar to the way I never dreamed I would like Jerry Maguire but I really enjoyed that movie too).7.5/10.
Starring Tom Cruise, directed by Tony Scott and brought to us by Bruckheimer and Simpson, that's a roll call of reasons why many would hate this before even watching it!Days of Thunder is pretty indicative of the films being made by this lot around this time.
Tom Cruise plays the role of Cole Trickle, a feisty upstart who gets his breaks in being a stock car driver.
Tom Cruise plays Cole Trickle, one of the best performances of his career and also in Top Gun. Robert Duvall was the best you could get, he's a crew chief who's ready to throw in the towel but sticks by his wild and impatient driver and shows he still has got what it takes.
The race track scenes were just amazing and despite not being a fan of racing it was really exciting to watch Cruise as Cole Trickle racing round the track at goodness knows how many miles per hour.The storyline itself was great as well.
The script from Robert Towne is weak (a "Top Gun" for racing cars - the original story was co-written by Robert Towne and Tom Cruise), and even Nicole Kidman seems disinterested, although Robert Duvall always makes the most of anything.
The writers of Days of Thunder brought a car racing film into life, gave it a great plot and put in some great actors like Robert Duvall, Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise.
There romance here works better than in "Top gun" , mostly because Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman become a couple during filming and soon married each other.
This is your typical average sport/racing movies, that offers very little surprises but is well made and has an excellent cast.The team behind "Top Gun", director Tony Scott, producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer and of course actor Tom Cruise.
DAYS OF THUNDER **** Star Tom Cruise teams with director Tony Scott and his collaborators to take their 'Top Gun' tactics to the racetrack, set at the coming of Datona 500.
The story's similar to 'Top Gun' in that we have a young, restless racer (Cruise) trying to pass by life by driving fast race cars, and a climactic situation temporarily ending his ability to do it, but 'Days of Thunder' contrasts because it takes a backseat to an engagingly glossier aura to make a more character-driven movie and it's something I appreciate in a degree: It got to be something of its own.
A Honda Rebel would have been more appropriate.As Driven is the all time worst race movie, watching Days Of Thunder after Driven will make Cruise and company  seem much better than watching "Days" after a Classic like Grand Prix.Hey it could be a lot worse.
The plot was so and so, having either Rowdy Burns (Michael Rooker), or Russ Wheeler (Cary Elwes) bumping and rubbing the car of Cole Trickle (Tom Cruise) on the track for the win, and vice versa.
As for Nicole Kidman, Robert Duvall, Randy Quaid, and the rest of the cast, they did okay in playing their characters in this film.
Not only that, the editing of Cole Trickle's car passing all those smoke-looking cars and going after either Rowdy Burns, or Russ Wheeler is horrible as well as the editing of real NASCAR races for the movie itself.
Well I still say to people that my favourite Tom Cruise movie is the NASCAR racing hit, Days Of Thunder'.
Like other Tom Cruise movies such as Top Gun', The Colour of Money' and Cocktail', Days Of Thunder' does follow a stock standard plot.
PLOT: Cole Trickle (Tom Cruise) is a guy with a lot of talent behind the wheel of a race car, but his weakness is his burning desire to win.
Nicole Kidman plays the love interest as a beautiful doctor who helps Cole recover after a really bad accident on the tracks, and she also helps him in a few other areas.MY TAKE:  Days of Thunder is a fun popcorn movie that manages to stay interesting throughout.
Tom Cruise, Robert Duvall, and Nicole Kidman are the major players, and they're all good in their roles.
My Age: 13Cole Trickle, played by Tom Cruise, enters the world of Nascar driving in Days of Thunder.
He and Rowdy Burns, played by Michael Rooker, also become friends.Days of Thunder has many things in common with the earlier film Top Gun. First it has the same producers, Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer, and the same star, Tom Cruise.
In the case of Days of Thunder, however, we have a film that displays all of the characteristics of the average Bruckheimer production, but that manages to avoid becoming yet another emotionally manipulative and generally weak film outside of the obviously massive financial purging that went into every element of the film except the story, the script, and the artistic input.Tom Cruise, a Bruckheimer veteran, plays the part of Cole Trickle, a smart-ass rookie who decides that he wants to race for Nascar despite massive ignorance about the functional workings of the cars themselves.
The Racing scenes are awesome and if you love car-action movies, you will watch these scenes over and over.
Overall, great movie, watch if your a fan of NASCAR, car action, or Tom Cruise.
All you need to know is that it's Tom Cruise playing a racing car driver & you can peg the entire plot, every bit of it.
This is grand entertainment at it's finest!, with some incredible racing scenes, fantastic characters, and 2 amazing performances from Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman!.
This is grand entertainment at it's finest!, with some incredible racing scenes, fantastic characters, and 2 amazing performances from Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman!.
The Story while somewhat cheesy is simply fantastic!, and i thought this movie had some of the best racing scenes ever in a movie!, plus Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman are simply amazing in this!.
This is grand entertainment at it's finest, with some incredible racing scenes, fantastic characters, and 2 amazing performances from Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, and i say Go see it immediately!.