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I was lucky enough to catch this movie at the video store a few years back. I liked it so much that I actually bought it when it went on sale.

Some of the reviews on here compared this film to Fast and Furious, which doesn't hold water as far as I'm concerned. Sure there were fast cars and racing. However, Born to Race was done on a lower budget but was as equally enjoyable and stands on its own merits.

Just taking the time here to recommend this film. It was very good by all accounts and pleasurable watch.

Since the beginning you know how the movie will be end. Is not at all original, the movie just takes things (a lot of them) from other movies. Bad acting, poor dialogs, anodyne characters. The hero, the guy that looks like a young Quentin Tarantino is boring, and at the end, who cares if he wins or not? Like other reviewer said, the film is full of clichés: the High School bad guy, his girlfriend who fall in love with the new kid in town, the rich dad, the drunk/loser dad, etc, etc. Nothing new. If you want to waste 94 minutes of your life, go ahead and watch it. There's a movie much better than this, even better than Tokyo Drift. Is called "Initial D". I assure you, you won't be disappointed with Initial D. You won't regret using 107 minutes from your life to watch it.

.. and that's not a bad thing. Most car movies out there are entertainment-only movies for the general audience, so they are full of hammy dialog, hammy acting, hammy directing and inaccuracies about cars.

This is fairly accurate about cars (not perfect, but not outrageous either), has some hammy dialog but the acting and directing are quite competent compared with the Fast and the Furious.

I highly recommend this film for lovers of cars and drag racing in particular. It's also good to see street racers take it to the track like they should; although there are scenes of irresponsible driving, those scenes don't go well for the main character and the movie leads the audience morally in the right direction: to the track.

By just looking at the title and cover you would think this is some ultra low budget cheese fest with poor acting and ridiculous plots but that is very far from the truth.

Despite being predictable and having the usual cliches it's very entertaining, all the actors played their parts well and the movie was well shot. The racing scenes are also very well done and there is no over the top nonsense, everything is completely plausible.

If your a fan of modified cars along with street and drag racing this will surely keep you entertained without doubt, the director or whomever was responsible did their homework with the technical aspects of cars and the modifications so all seems mostly realistic.

Give it a shot you won't be disappointed.

Ever since the mainstream success of 2001's "The Fast and the Furious", street racing movies have been a recurring subject for big and small film studios alike. Despite the relative popularity of movies in this vein, they tend to draw the ire of "gearheads" (or petrolheads, for those across the pond) due to their questionable representation of cars, car culture, racing, and automotive technology. Whether it be nonsensical techno-babble, or impossible-to-reconcile vehicle physics, there tends to be a deluge of blind idiot errors or silly oversights that annoy those of us whose hearts pump synthetic oil rather than blood.

No movie is wholly immune to such things, but thankfully, "Born to Race" averts the aforementioned TFATF-esque ludicrousness. The research has clearly been done when it comes to the techno-babble strewn throughout the film. Moreover, car culture and drag racing is more or less accurately represented where other movies fall flat. The American muscle cars shown aren't the typical triumvirate of Mustang, Camaro, and Charger/Challenger (though these are certainly featured within). A Buick Grand National plays a significant role in the film, and is a recurring sight throughout, and there are scenes exhibiting an Oldsmobile 442, Chevrolet Bel Air and Nova, and even the Lil' Red Express 1979 Dodge D150 drag truck. In summation, the cars, car jargon, and car culture has a greater, more accurate representation than most Hollywood racer films.

The other large failing of many street racing-genre films is the catastrophically canned acting the leads and support dole out. While the script is nothing short of generic high school hero stuff, the acting is of an unusually high caliber. Lead Joseph Cross, of "Running With Scissors" fame, delivers a solid, if slightly weedy performance, and the big bad bully, played by Brando Eaton, does well with what he's given to work with. My personal favorite character, the father of the protagonist, played by veteran John Pyper-Ferguson, puts forth an excellent effort, managing to be lovable, despicable, and humorous all at once.

Where other street racer movies are a complete mess of poor acting and Wikipedia knowledge, Born to Race manages a solid cinema experience for a fraction of the cost of the big boys. I would recommend this film to any street racing/drag racing aficionados, as well as anyone who likes a decent high school hero drama-type story.