It stars two actors that I've always liked and even wrote about in my "10 Movies Everyone Should See" series, Sylvester Stallone and Burt Reynolds. It's also a sports movie (sure it's Formula 1 racing, but it counts). So I like the film for those two aspects but, overall it is a bad movie. Directed by career-hack Renny Harlin, the movie feels chaotic and unfocused for large stretches which probably contributed to it being a critical and commercial flop.
The story is about a young driver named Jimmy Bly (played by Kip Purdue) who, while in the midst of an impressive rookie season, is having trouble dealing with all the pressure of being a rising star in the sport. This leads the team owner Carl Henry (played by Burt Reynolds) to bring in an experienced, former pro to act as a mentor to Jimmy. That former pro is Joe Tanto (played by Sylvester Stallone) who feels like he should be the hero of this story but isn't because it's about Jimmy. There is also an odd amount of poorly scripted love triangle drama in this movie. Jimmy briefly dates his rival's ex-girlfriend but, she leaves him for the the other guy. Also, Joe Tanto's ex-wife is married to his friend, and Joe starts dating a reporter that the ex-wife seems to dislike for no reason. It's a mess.
Overall, I don't recommend this movie. The acting isn't great, and the script bad. However, by far the worst thing in my opinion is how the film is shot and edited. A single scene in this movie will feature close-up, cut, cut, close-up, cut, whip-pan, cut, close-up of a car, cut, another whip-pan, cut... it never stops. I get that they were going for intense and high-energy but, it just came off a distracting.
I give this one a 1.5 out of 5.
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