Snake & Mongoose

This indie film shines with great directing, fine acting and wonderful cinematography. It's portrayal of 1960's drag racing culture is enhanced with great music and dead-on period settings, backed with tons of archival footage of the real stuff. Prudhomme and McEwen's often-difficult back stories show the rivalry and friendship that created drag racing legends....legends that in turn created a new paradigm for sports sponsorship and promotion. The film takes you along for the entire ride with its ups and downs, wins and losses, happiness and sadness. Along with Ford V. Ferrari, one of the best racing films in many years.

If you're looking for award winning caliber acting or writing here then this is probably not the movie for you , as it has a definite B-movie stamp on it. However, I found myself engaged enough in the story, based on true events, to be quite interested throughout.

It chronicles the 20 year drag racing rivalry between Don "The Snake" Prudhomme and Tom "The Mongoose" McEwen, culminating at the NHRA U.S. National Championships, in 1978 at Indianapolis, Indiana. This was rather a friendly rivalry even culminating in a business partnership at one point.

The two men were polar opposites in personality with McEwen, portrayed by Richard Blake, being outgoing, gregarious, and always looking at innovations and the big picture, while Prudhomme. played by Jesse Williams, being a "nose-to-the-grindstone" type who was completely focused on winning races.

Led by McEwen's excellent marketing skills, they eventually landed the large toy manufacturer Mattel as a sponsor, and it proved to be a highly beneficial partnership for all concerned, with the Hot Wheels toy promotions. This also helped bring drag racing onto the national scene and brought a whole new wave of fans on board.

With a good supporting cast including Ashley Hinshaw, Tim Blake Nelson, Fred Dryer, Noah Wylie, and Kim Shaw the movie was also enhanced by its' interspersion of actual drag races and the national TV coverage at times. There's also a short but funny interview clip with the real Prudhomme and McEwen which was valuable to see.

Having watched drag racing on TV years ago, I found this film overall to be interesting, despite, as mentioned, the wooden dialog and acting.

"What you have in your office right here is the biggest draw in racing." In the 1970's the NHRA drag racing circuit was just starting to grow. The two biggest stars Don "The Snake" Proudhomme (Williams) and Tom "Mongoose" McEwen decide to join together and form a partnership. This partnership leads to a sponsorship with Hot Wheels as well as taking the sport to new heights. But like most things the rivalry on the track leads to tension off. I have stated before that I am not a big car racing fan, real life or movies. I wasn't a fan of Days of Thunder but I did think Rush was OK. This one is more along the lines of Rush. This one deals with the off the track aspect rather then the actual on track racing. The acting is OK but the thing that really helps the movie is the fact that it used actual race footage during the scenes, rather then the cheesy recreations most often used. Again though racing fans will really like this, but for people like me, I thought it was OK but nothing I'd watch again. Overall, better then I expected and the fact that real footage was used really made the movie that much better. I give this a B.

I disagree with Netflixry. My dad used to drag race, so I grew up at the race track. I majored in Broadcasting in college, so I'd like to think I also have a decent grasp of film making. Is this film on the level of Forest Gump or Titanic? No, it's not. But Snake and Mongoose didn't have their budget either. Does it have a 'made-for-TV' feel to it? Yes it does. But I wouldn't call the film horrible. In fact, my dad and I were talking after watching it, and we agreed that it's probably one of the best racing movies ever made. Will a die hard drag racing fan notice a few minor inaccuracies? Yes. But on a whole, this film was still a lot more true to the historical and technical aspects of racing than Heart Like a Wheel, Days of Thunder, or Driven. So if you're a motor sports fan who doesn't realistically expect the production value to be on the same level as Jurassic Park, I'd say it's a good watch, worth your 90 minutes of time.

Too bad this didn't get more traction. It's actually a great movie. It's more than just about racing. It's got real heart & depth, shows how teammates bring different strengths to the table. Personally I love cars & racing but I think anyone can enjoy this movie.