Burnout

Formula story about a man who wants to make it on his own without his dad's help. Productions values are one step above home movie. Considering it's a movie about drag racing, there is very little racing in the movie, although there is a never ending string of blue grass music to keep you from falling asleep.

The core idea of "Burnout" - focusing on a young wannabe who wants to participate and succeed in the drag race circuit - had a lot of potential. But the end results fail in any way you can think of. As I said in the subject heading of this comment, I don't think this qualifies as a movie. That's because there is a TON of padding coming from the filmmakers filming a great deal of footage of drag racers performing in front of a live audience. That's right - the races we see for the most part are more or less stock footage! I wouldn't be surprised if the screenplay was written after the writer watched all the stock footage, because the little staged scenes that there are add up to so little of the running time that I'm sure even the principle actors only worked for a few days. And this limited footage is not very endearing, since the central youth character in the movie comes across as very selfish and not appreciative of the opportunities and investments his father gave him. I'm sure even drag race fans who saw this in the drive-in circuit felt bored, frustrated, and ripped off long before the movie came to an end.

There is a good film below the surface in this Crown International release. But alas Burnout fails to deliver ultimately. Its main problem I would say is that there is so little material that the run-time has been padded out with an awful lot of real footage from the racing circuit. This stuff lends the film a bit of atmosphere to a certain extent but it definitely is over-used. The main feeling is that Crown cobbled this one together quickly and cheaply with a minimum of film-making and a considerable amount of stock footage to bring it up to an acceptable running time.

The story focuses on a teenager who looks to be not a day under thirty, as he tries to become a drag racing driver. Add in some drama pertaining to his rich, disappointed father and you have the bare bones of a narrative. There's just not really enough on screen to get involved with here and it probably works best as a nuts and bolts look at the goings on at a drag racing circuit in the 70's; beyond that its honestly slim pickings at best.