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Show j.mk I - Good Drive-in or dis-. A 66l I IT6 "count movie house ticket vJL ivviiiiiiw pice Nof a bad mwyie( f5Jy but not really worth full admission orice. Vays of Thunder' plot ' offers few surprises I used to avoid Tom Cruise movies. I had him pegged as a walking jaw line, with no real acting ability. After ''Rain Man" I had to change my opinion, because he was terrific in that movie, and I decided he was maturing and could actually become a good actor. Then I saw the trailer for "Days of Thunder." I thought to myself, "Top Gun II: The Race Car." Since he had obviously relapsed from his brief respectability, I was imagining a series, like Planet of the Apes, in which Tom Cruise picks a different loud, fast vehicle and dominates it. As possible titles I imagined "TG III: The Rodeo," or "TG IV: The Circus Cannon." So much for preconceptions. To my surprise, I liked this movie. Cruise plays Cole Trickle, a race car driver who arrives at the track on a roaring motorcycle. He is a fine driver but a little headstrong, and his personality clashes with the crew chief, Harry, played by Robert Duvall. Harry tries to teach Cole a different style of driving, since the young man is not familiar with stock cars, and Cole begins to win races. His rival is Rowdy Barnes, (Michael Rooker) a rough-and-tumble driver who will happily beat another car into the dirt as he passes. During one race, Cole and Rowdy collide and both are hospitalized. Here they meet the beautiful lady doctor (Nicole Kidman) Kid-man) who of course will be Cruise's love interest since she is about the only woman in the film. Anyway, Cole is pronounced fit and leaves the hospital. When he returns to the track, he has been replaced by another tal-nted tal-nted and handsome young driver (Cary Elwes, from "The Princess Bride") who wins the prize for sar- casm and nasty smirks. Cole has to overcome his loss of nerve, shake off Rowdy's serious injury and defeat the new guy before he can save the day. This movie has a lot of tittle tic-bits tic-bits which give it charm above and beyond its heroic, if simple, plot Duvall is great as the crusty pit crew chief who knows all about racing, rac-ing, Randy Quaid is by turns fxiendT ly and conniving (he plays a car salesman), and there are offhandedly off-handedly funny scenes, where Cruise runs into the wall or gives one of the mechanics a cup of coffee. The minor characters, mostly most-ly unknown actors, give some depth to this picture. Still, the similarities to "Top Gun" cannot be overlooked. There, is the story, where the young hot-dogger hot-dogger who is annoyingly good at what he does must face opposition, injury and the pressure of a friend who asks the near impossible. A particularly vivid scene in "Top Gun," which utilized back-lit silhouettes of anatomical features normally hidden behind the teeth, is repeated. And the big motorcycle, lest we forget. "Days of Thunder" is not going to be required viewing at MTT, but summer films are traditionally tight, relying on action and comedy and special effects. It should come as no surprise that there are few unexpected unex-pected plot twists; however, the movie still holds the audience's at tent ion. At one point, Harry says something like, "I honestly don't know what will happen at the big race," to which Cole responds "Me neither." These men were the only two people in the theater who didn't know that Cole was going to win the big race, but it's still easy to like these characters and care what happens to them. I |