Days of Thunder (1990)

Written by CinemaSerf on April 17, 2024

"Harry" (Robert Duvall) is quite merrily driving his tractor on his farm when his erstwhile racing partner 'Daland" (Randy Quaid) shows up telling him of a new hotshot driver that he simply has to meet. Reluctantly he goes to the track and is introduced to the stroppy and headstrong "Cole" (Tom Cruise). Let's just say that the two just don't get on at all, but hey - we all know what has to happen now and yep, that's exactly how things pan out. An injury puts "Cole" under the care of "Dr. Claire" (Nicole Kidman) and I'm not too sure what the ethics committee might have to say about what ensues on the romantic front of this entirely predictable high-octane yarn. It might almost be as if one of the stars was a petrol-head and had enough money for a vanity project? Maybe that's just cynical - but in any case there's always some decent race photography to fall back on as the narrative suggests the depth of driving skills in this sport isn't very extensive. Duvall does his best to inject a little gravitas to the proceedings, but it's essentially a quickly-paced toy for it's headliner that you can watch for the (very) occasional adrenalin rush but that's about the height of it.