Speedway Junkie

I suspect you'll only really like this if you saw it back in the day.

It's just a mess. Partly because the story is 99% from Johnny's point of view, then one of the few significant context switches features Eric telling Veronica he's frustrated because he loves Johnny, as if that's not the most obvious part of the film.

Annoying, but minor.

The Johnny/Eric story is the heart of the film and it's a good one.

But there's so many problems here. The movie can't decide if it wants to be edgy and a somewhat realistic view of the lives of young hustlers in Vegas or if it wants to be kindergarten.

Then there's the completely surreal ending starting with JT handing the two a baggie of money and drugs then shows up a week later demanding they return it like they run a safe deposit box-- they live in a motel.

But it gets far more surreal when bullets fly because JT shoots a can of tomato soup off Johnny's head and Eric shows up two seconds later and thinks Johnny has been shot.

It's hard to fathom how off the rails this goes.

Jesse Bradford is a good looking guy (those lips!)& his acting in this film is very good. I'm not a Daryl Hannah fan, but was impressed by her performance here. Jonathan Taylor Thomas is & always will be an annoying little twerp. This story of teen hustling is familiar. It's got everything you'd expect from a movie like this: An old fat pervert, lust, violence, car chase, street life, gay & bi-sexuality, teen angst, unrequited love, booze, death, etc. There's a dance sequence thrown in, but I was embarrassed for all involved, it was awkward, pointless, & goofy.

Speedway Junky finds young and innocent Jesse Bradford who was raised in a military family running away from California to Charlotte, North Carolina so he can become part of the NASCAR circuit. Jesse makes a detour in Las Vegas and begins an odyssey with an ending that would have astonished him before he entered Sin City.

Getting ripped off his first night in Vegas, Bradford falls in with a gang of street hustlers led by Jonathan Taylor Thomas of whom one of the members is gay kid Jordan Brower. Bradford does what he has to do to survive, but not being gay or street wise his heart just ain't in the work.

But Brower's heart is with Bradford, he's crushing out big time on Jesse and sad to say that aspect of the friendship isn't and can't be returned. Or can it?

Bradford and Brower are an appealing pair of young kids just trying to survive. Jonathan Taylor Thomas shows some acting chops that you would not suspect he had as Tim Allen's son. Tiffani Amber-Thiessen another television refugee from Saved By The Bell and 90210 is also on hand as well.

Some make it, some don't survive this film. Speedway Junky is touching story that will break a few hearts, gay or straight.

Despite some rough edges and a questionable Hollywood-like ending, this film offers an endearing relationship between two young men, one gay, the other not. Unrequited love raises its ugly head in the underworld of Las Vegas, with hustlers and drug dealers. Our hero wants to become a racer and make enough money to travel to Charlotte, NC. The other young man only wants someone to take care of and be there when times are rough. Their lives mix with a motley bunch of characters, most of whom only want a sexual favor or a drug turn-on. The acting of the two male leads is superb, with Eric as a truly tragic figure. But why did the screenwriter need to contrive the brutal ending? I suppose a film with a rough edge needs a rough edge ending, but once in a while can't the characters win? This film needs to be seen a couple times before final judgment is rendered. I gave it an 8/10, which is much higher than other reviewers, because it delivers a very important human theme that all of us can identify with.

For a supposedly bunch of cultured, educated, intelligent, and especially creative folks, gay people seem to make the same movie over and over and over. "Speedway Junky" is old news. Writer/Director Nickolas Perry mixes up "Midnight Cowboy," "Where the Day Takes You," "johns," and an ABC Afterschool Special and comes up with a concoction so bland that you'll find yourself pushing it around on your plate, wondering what to do with it.

The story focuses on a naive county boy runaway (Jesse Bradford) who comes to Las Vegas to strike it rich so that he can become a race car driver. Of course, he is practically robbed, raped and beaten by the time the first reel is over. The film's most nauseating segment concerns a businessman who picks up the young boy for obvious reasons. Of course, Jesse is blind to the whole scenario until it gets real obvious. It's revolting stereotypical crud.

But Jesse is fortunate enough to meet young Jordan Brower, a gay urban hustler who takes him under his wing. Jordan has his sights on Jesse but he's such a sweet young gay hustler that he wouldn't dream of forcing himself on the other boy. They become fast friends when Jesse gets the stuffingkicked out of him and Jordan nurses him back to health, like the good homosexual teenage boy that he is. Of course, Jesse is straight, so Jordan is wasting his time here. Wow - how novel!

Along the way there is much more trash. Jonathan Taylor Thomas plays the king of the strip, a teen hustler who does it all if the price is right. Of course, the biggest draw here is to see the wholesome milk-drinking TV star say "fuck" and talk about taking it up the ass. Whoopie. Thomas does the best he can, but he is relegated to the backdrop of the Jesse/Jordan love story - or rather, the lack thereof of it. Thomas also has to compete against some of the worst acting in the world, brought forth by Daryl Hannah, Tiffany Amber- Thiesen and some unknowns who were unfortunate enough to be cast here. It's a shambles.

If there is any savior of the piece, it is Brower who does his absolute best here to bring his gay teen character to life. He's might be quite good with the right director and costars. The scenes between him and Hannah almost work. A particularly good scene comes when Brower cries in unrequited love while his friend Jesse makes it with Hannah. The scenes are quick cut back and forth but the heterosexual scene doesn't go far enough. We know why Brower is in anguish, he is thinking of Jesse with the older woman. The scene with Jesse and Hannah, however, is so dull, so lackluster, so bland that it doesn't really work. Brower would be thinking of his love interest in bed with the woman, not just him kissing her tenderly. It just doesn't go far enough. It doesn't have enough oomph. It's too darn Hollywood "safe." Too bad Brower works so hard for almost no payoff. That's his problem in the whole movie. He's the only one on screen with any chops.

Perry somehow talked Gus Van Sant into producing this piece of drivel. Hope Gus did it as a tax write-off. Why would he produce a watered-down drab rip-off of his own "My Own Private Idaho?" "Speedway Junky" is pure soap opera. There is no spark here, no joy, no fun and nothing new. Same crud, different film. Perry doesn't even seem to be trying. There is no glimmering in his direction. There is not one interesting shot (does the camera even move?) and definitely no unifying theme or motif or visual sense. Even Las Vegas as a backdrop looks bland. In many ways, it would be more fun to sit in the 4 Queens casino on the strip and drop quarters in the slot machines than to sit through this sorry waste of film. But occassionally you hit a small payoff, and Brower pops up with another good bit of acting in an otherwise barren wasteland of lost, pointless neon.

Personal Notes: Seen on 8/28/99 as part of the Austin Gay and Lesbian Independent Film Festival. The director, an extremely nice man, was in attendance and did a Q&A session. Among other tales was the story of hiring JTT. Another actor had been hired to play the role of Steven but showed up incapacitated . Perry was given 48 hours to find a new teenage "name actor" or the film would be scraped. JTT was on hiatus during the summer from "Home Improvement" and accepted the role after being faxed pages of the script.

Perry did not write the cross cut scene where Bradford and Hannah make love and Brower cries. He had those as separate entities. The editor did this and showed it to Perry who wisely saw it's genius.

Perry said that he thought of Brower's character as a sort of saint but did not consciously act visually on this idea. He said many people see religious imagery in the film. I myself saw a scene where a hubcap in the background was lit so that it became a halo over a scene. Perry said this was not a conscious thing.

Perry said he had written many scripts about L.A. fringe youth but none had sold. He made a short film called "Must Be the Music" (shown at agliff in '96) which Van Sant saw and liked. The director agreed to work with Perry about the time he was coming off the phenomenal "Good Will Hunting" which helped spark interest in his script for "Speedway Junky" and got the ball rolling.

Perry said his next project was that he was hired to write a script about a rock star who fakes his own death after his biggest hit so he can find the girl of his dreams. Uck!

At this time, the film is still seeking a distributor.