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Worst Car Movies: Quick Overview
Sometimes, it’s two-dimensional and brainless characters, a script full of car clichés, an absurd plot, or a combination of all three. Whatever the case, here are five of the worst car movies ever made. And not just bad for us gearheads, but bad films in general!
#1: Redline
“It’s hard to say whether gleaming automobiles or women’s bodies are given the more fetishlike treatment in this vanity production.” ~ Frank Scheck, Hollywood Reporter (Rotten Tomatoes).
Not even the likes of Overdrive or Trading Paint can compete with the sheer stupidity that is Redline. Seriously, Frankie & Annette movies work better. The “plot” is razor-thin, the filmmakers have contempt for fundamental physics, and the acting is bottom-of-the-barrel awful.
The Redline “Storyline”
As many reviewers have already pointed out, the plot is comically bad. We have a band of street racers funded by a group of millionaires. Naturally, those millionaires wager over their high-powered supercars and who has the best drivers. The entire narrative is like a knock-knock joke, minus the punch line.
Casting & “Acting”
Redline stars Nadia Bjorlin as Natasha, an auto mechanic, aspiring musician, and highly skilled race car driver plagued by her father’s death at a NASCAR race years ago. Before Redline, Bjorlin was a soap opera actress but likely got the call here because she was engaged to producer Daniel Sadek.
Sure, she’s way out of her depth and talent, but even the other, somewhat more seasoned professionals in Redline reek of cinematic incompetence.
Tim Matheson (Otter in Animal House) is Jerry Brecken, a high-rolling pro gambler. Angus Macfadyen plays the generically named Michael D’Orazio, a mob boss and also a high-rolling pro gambler.
I’ve seen Matheson and Macfadyen do well in other roles, but here? Matheson’s efforts look like first-take material. Macfadyen, by contrast, is simply out of it, flouncing and floating around in cheesecloth outfits in one scene and trying to be a violent mob guy in the next.
The ostensible lead is Carlo, played by Nathan Phillips. USAF veteran Carlo is back from a tour of duty in Iraq whose brother, Jason (Jesse Johnson), is living with their mob boss uncle Michael D’Orazio.
Physics Beyond Belief
Car movies can and do play fast and loose with physics, but Redline takes it to an incredible new low.
Cars flip for no reason, cross great distances in mere minutes, and outrun cops in the most impossible of ways. Redline doesn’t shy away from any of this, no matter how factually inaccurate it might be. Indeed, more often than not, it pulls some CHiPs-level stunt, then spends too much time on cast reactions.
All the other lousy car movie tropes are here in abundance: multiple upshifts, squealing tires on gravel, the proverbial “need to go faster, so I’ll just mash down on the gas,” villainous looks between drivers, and explosions no matter what. Always explosions.
Redline & The Global Financial Crisis
Daniel Sadek, who made Redline, is originally from Lebanon. After coming to America, he sold cars and eventually founded the subprime lending firm Quick Loan Funding. Sadek’s earnings soared, which he used to buy homes in SoCal and Vegas, build up his collection of supercars, and feed his ravenous desire for gambling.
Quick Loan Funding folded in the wake of the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis, but not before racking up record profits. Sadek borrowed money against expected profits from Redline, which tanked, making $8.3 million against $33 million in costs.
Redline and Quick Loan Funding was such a clown show that CNBC’s House of Cards used it as an example of the immoderation of the pre-meltdown mortgage market. Sadek lost his escrow and lending licenses over withdrawing millions from his corporate accounts to gamble in Vegas. He was eventually sued by Bellagio and Wells Fargo over unpaid debts and repeated cash advances made at resorts worldwide.
Sadek was listed by Vanity Fair as number 86 in their 100 to Blame for the economic crisis, calling him “Predator Zero in the subprime-mortgage game.”
#2: Driven
Driven, the 2001 Sylvester Stallone racing movie is not to be confused with the John DeLorean movie of the same name starring Jason Sudeikis, Judy Greer, and Lee Pace. That Driven was top-notch through and through. This Driven is among the worst car movies ever made.
Soap Opera Plot
This Driven centers on a young hot-shoe driver named Jimmy Bly (Kip Pardue) and his effort to win the CART Indycar championship. The movie starts halfway into the season, with our hero having already won five races. His brother (and business manager) is more concerned with money and sponsorships, putting tremendous pressure on young Jimmy.
Meanwhile, other racers think his fiancée Sophia Simone (Estella Warren) is becoming “a distraction,” so Jimmy dumps her and starts winning again.
If that isn’t soap opera enough, we have Jimmy’s double-dealing team owner, Carl Henry (Burt Reynolds), who brings in former champ Joe “The Hummer” Tanto (Sylvester Stallone) to mentor Jimmy as a teammate.
Tanto’s ex, Cathy Heguy, is married to Jimmy’s (now former) teammate Memo (Cristián de la Fuente). Despite all this, Joe and Memo are still friends. The fabulous Gina Gershon’s talent is wasted as Heguy, as is any potential Stallone and Reynolds might have had in this film.
Despite the obstacles in his way, you wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest to find out that Jimmy wins it all, gets his girl back, and earns the respect of all his competitors (Oops, spoilers!).
Renny Harlin Did This?
Renny Harlin was the director of Driven. Harlin did films such as A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, Die Hard 2, Cliffhanger, The Long Kiss Goodnight, and Deep Blue Sea.
In other words, this isn’t the director one would expect film school 101 mistakes from.
Not only is Driven poorly written, but the technical aspects are laughably bad. Some stunts are so poorly filmed you can see the wires holding the cars. It’s evident in some places that the cars are merely fake shells, and an overabundance of skid marks seems to indicate they were left in without consideration after multiple takes.
It’s the stuff casual moviegoers likely won’t notice, but racing fans pick up immediately.
Just How Bad Was Driven?
The only accolades Driven received were seven nominations at the 22nd Golden Raspberry Awards. These included Worst Picture, Worst Director, Worst Screenplay, Worst Screen Couple (for Reynolds and Stallone), and twice for Worst Supporting Actor (Reynolds and Stallone), with Estella Warren winning Worst Supporting Actress.
#3: Days of Thunder
Days of Thunder is not nearly as bad as Redline or Driven, and the movie has its fans and admirers, including a couple of my colleagues here at the Automoblog office. If you’re reading this and love the movie, it’s not my intention to rub you the wrong way, but I can’t get into this one, even though the late Tony Scott made a number of excellent films.
Days of Thunder hit theatres in June 1990 at a time when no one had done a serious racing movie for decades. It was a big-budget, massively hyped, star-studded picture from the cast and crew that made Top Gun. With Tom Cruise in the lead, Days of Thunder was destined to be the hit that would re-write the racing genre and give it the respect it deserved.
Unfortunately, it was frickin’ awful.
No Spoiler Alert Necessary
Days of Thunder follows Cole Trickle (Tom Cruise), a young up-and-coming driver who knows he’s got the talent to make it to the top. Along the way, he faces adversity, tough competitors, and physical challenges, but in the end—with the help of his stalwart crew—he rolls into Victory Lane and gets the girl.
Back in 1990, if your friends had seen Days of Thunder in the theatre first, they couldn’t really reveal any spoilers about it because there were none. Even if Days of Thunder had been made today, nobody on social media would need to flag their post as a “spoiler alert” because the plot is as predictable as every other awful racing movie.
NASCAR Name Generator
The most grating thing about Days of Thunder is that it has excellent actors like Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Robert Duvall, Randy Quaid, Michael Rooker, John C. Reilly, and Cary Elwes. However, even thespians of this caliber can’t get around a paper-thin plot and characters as flat as Kansas.
Each character has an overtly generic name, which doesn’t help their believability on screen. Collectively, they seem like a group of stock car posers rather than people who are associated with the sport in any meaningful way.
Robert Duvall is crew chief Harry Hogge, not to be confused with the late Harry Hyde. Michael Rooker is Winston Cup champ Rowdy Burns, an aggressive driver in an all-black Exxon Chevy. While clearly a nod to the late Dale Earnhardt, the name Rowdy Burns seems like it was spit out by a random NASCAR name generator.
Quaid and Elwes also have generic characters that are right off the rack, and like most of their castmates, their talent is wasted here.
The talents of Cruise and Kidman are no exception, either. While they do have great roles in other films, in Days of Thunder, they barely have the acting chops of a dinner plate, and their on-screen “chemistry” reaffirms why it’s among the worst car movies to date.
Of course, Cruise plays Cole Trickle, not to be confused with real-life driver Dick Trickle. Arguably, Crusie has the most generic character name of the generic character names in the film.
Trickle’s love interest is neurosurgeon Dr. Claire Lewicki, played by Kidman, Cruise’s then-wife. She is among the least convincing doctors in cinema history, and they borrowed the character name from the late NASCAR champ Alan Kulwicki.
Redeeming Qualities
Perhaps the best part about Days of Thunder is its late ’80s and early ’90s nostalgia.
Hendrick Motorsports supplied the stockcars, there are plenty of cameo appearances from NASCAR royalty, and Hans Zimmer’s musical score is alongside the soundtrack’s main cut, Last Note of Freedom, sung by David Coverdale of Whitesnake.
Yes, there are redeeming qualities, but they are just not enough to get Days of Thunder across the finish line.
#4: Baby Driver
Like Days of Thunder, this one will likely generate some controversy on this worst car movies list, as Baby Driver was nominated for a boatload of awards following its 2017 release. By all accounts, the film was enjoyed by both critics and casual moviegoers, but like Days of Thunder, I just don’t feel the thrill on this ride.
Baby (Ansel Elgort) is a getaway driver in Atlanta. He survived a childhood car crash that killed his parents and left him with tinnitus, but he finds healing in music with iPods jammed into his ears. Despite having a permanent soundtrack running through his head, Baby is acutely aware of his surroundings.
Baby transports crews of robbers contracted by criminal mastermind Doc (Kevin Spacey) as payback for offending Doc. We are soon introduced to Debora (Lily James), a waitress at a local diner who Baby begins falling for. And although the following job goes south, Baby’s driving talent saves the day.
By this point, Baby has earned his freedom from Doc and starts delivering pizzas, perhaps as a nod to Initial D. However, the evil Doc forces Baby to pull one last job, threatening to hurt Debora and Baby’s foster father should he refuse.
Great Cast, Sometimes Mediocre Delivery
Elgort as Baby is primarily silent, brooding, and looks to be doing a dreadful Brando imitation most of the time. James as Debora is yet another interchangeable ingénue character that Hollywood cranks out these days, and there isn’t much James, as talented as she is, can do to beat the cliché here.
Disgraced chicken-hawker Kevin Spacey plays Doc. Spacey is typically a great actor, but you can only partially tell that here. The same goes for John Hamm, who plays Buddy. I’ve seen Hamm do great work in literally everything else, but in Baby Driver, all we get is a coke-addled twitch.
Jamie Foxx plays Leon “Bats” Jefferson III, Doc’s merciless henchman. Foxx and Jon Bernthal as Griff, one of Doc’s other thugs, do have their moments, admittedly.
It should be noted that Edgar Wright wrote and directed Baby Driver. He also made Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, and the delightful The Sparks Brothers.
#5: Any Fast & Furious Movie
You tell some random person you’re into cars, and the first thing that pops into their head is, “Oh, like The Fast & Furious movies?” Ugh! No, not like that! Do people really think we’re out there boosting VCRs and dragging bank vaults around the streets of Rio?
Order the Fast & Furious box set, and you will officially have a towering stack of the worst car movies.
Not Exactly Car Movies; Just Have Cars In Them
The first Fast & Furious captured the vibe of the import tuner scene; that much is true. The film inspired a new generation of car collectors and paid tribute to various aspects of the gearhead scene circa 2001. But after that? Fuhgettaboutit.
After that, it was one far-fetched caper after another. Pretty soon, we’re rationalizing car chases involving submarines and putting Pontiac Fieros into suborbital flight.
As Dominic Toretto will tell you, these movies are about family, or “fambly” as he pronounces it. It’s a catch-all term for the series meant to convey that anyone on the Toretto side of the line is good. Anyone not on that side is suspicious. That’s about as deep as these movies get and, perhaps, gives a veneer of explanation, if not acceptability, to the group’s actions.
True, every Fast & Furious flick is loaded with cars, but the real achievement here is that the right cars always end up with the right characters. This is something the Fast & Furious franchise does well across every film in its portfolio.
Brian O’Conner (played by the late Paul Walker) is into JDM cars. Dom is a true blue American with an affinity for Mopar muscle. Various and sundry other characters were identifiable by their rides of choice: Han Lue is into high-end Asian rides, usually customized, while Letty Ortiz also prefers American iron.
Unfortunately, the usual tropes that drive gearheads bazookas are present: 18 upshifts during a drag race, questionable physics, and unnecessary explosions. Always explosions.
Worst Car Movies Conclusion
Like many things, what counts as a good or bad movie will likely be determined in the eye of the beholder. For some, it is probably wild to think that anyone would put Days of Thunder and Baby Driver on a list of the worst car movies, and some may even enjoy movies like Redline or Driven. That’s okay.
It’s also possible that films we deem as the best car movies of all time might not register with everyone. And that’s okay, too.
Whatever you are watching tonight, just make sure you treat yourself to some good food and maybe a beer.
Longtime Automoblog writer Tony Borroz has worked on popular driving games as a content expert, in addition to working for aerospace companies, software giants, and as a movie stuntman. He lives in the northeast corner of the northwestern-most part of the Pacific Northwest.
Original article: Furiously Ridiculous: The Worst Car Movies of All Time
