Days of Thunder is processed cheese. It is extremely easy to digest (and sometimes deliciously entertaining), but it is still processed cheese nonetheless. This 1990 popcorn flick about race car drivers, the men who build their machines and the women who love them has about as much substance as a Twinkie with a Tootsie Role stuffed inside of it. If you’re in the right frame of mind, it can be just as disgustingly delicious, too.
The movie follows hotshot NASCAR newcomer Cole Trickle (Tom Cruise) as he and his mentor and legendary pit crew chief Harry Hogge (Robert Duvall) pull out all the stops to try and win at Daytona. Along the way he engages in playful jousting with fellow driver Rowdy Burns (Michael Rooker), deals with egotistical upstart Russ Wheeler (Cary Elwes) and ends up romancing his doctor Claire Lewicki (Nicole Kidman) after a crash leaves him psychologically battered.
It’s the usual Hollywood hokum, screenwriter Robert Towne – working from a story co-written with Cruise and one heck of a long way from Chinatown – following the usual template pretty much start to finish. The film plays like greatest hits culled from racing classics like Le Mans and Grand Prix, the romance within bursting with so much hysterically unintended melodrama even Douglas Sirk would laugh uncontrollably if he were still around to watch it.
Be that as it may, the film goes down surprisingly easy. Director Tony Scott (Crimson Tide, Déjà vu) is at his glossy easygoing best, while Cruise is at the very top of his charismatically beguiling game. The duo’s only re-teaming post-Top Gun shows they have a director-star chemistry that’s something special, and if I could make the heavens part and the financing pocketbooks open I’d tell the both of them to find a decent script and make another film together immediately.
It must also be noted that Days of Thunder, expertly edited by Billy Weber (Midnight Run) and Chris Lebenzon (Pearl Harbor) and wonderfully photographed by Ward Russell (The Last Boy Scout), features my second favorite Hans Zimmer score of all-time. As great as his work has been on projects as diverse as The Lion King, Gladiator and The Dark Knight only his music for Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line comes close to the euphoria I feel whenever I hear his themes for this. If ever music completely changed my appreciation of a film from slightly negative into the exact opposite direction this is that film. I can’t imagine any other composer coming up with something as outstanding as what Zimmer’s crafted here.
Paramount’s Blu-ray release of the film looks and sounds great, but if you’re expecting special features you’ve got another thing coming. The disc offers you the theatrical trailer and that’s it, not a single other extra included on the disc. More, while the technical upgrades are obvious they’re not enough to make purchasing the movie to replace an older standard definition DVD even close to worthwhile.
Until prices go down, and unless you’re a diehard fan who thinks Days of Thunder is an unheralded classic worthy of more appreciation than I’m willing to give it, I’d recommend passing on buying this disc for right now. Because, seriously, as delicious as processed cheese can be, how often do you actually pull it out of the fridge and eat it?
