Director: Graham Meech-Burkestone
Writer: Martin J. Rosen
From: Cult Cinema
A rich man’s son enters the world of drag racing with his father’s help only to give up and try to work his way up from the bottom.
The movie opens with our “hero,” Scott, being put on trial. Via flashbacks and a later expository conversation with his girlfriend, we learn that Scott was drag racing and there was an accident. The editing makes it seem like Scott killed an old lady, but he tells his girlfriend that he killed a dog instead.
Great way to introduce your lead character movie: start with him killing a dog. Is there any way to top this? Well…
The judge in the trial calls Scott’s dad back to his chambers to have a chat about how to sentence Scott. That’s right, the movie opens with our lead killing a dog and then getting off because his dad is rich and chummy with the judge. People ask how Brock Turner happens—this his how Brock Turner happens.
Scott’s dad runs a company. Some sort of firm of manufacturing business inc engineering llc associates & son. The company is never defined. What is defined is Scott’s unwillingness to follow in his dad’s footsteps even though his dad doesn’t pressure him to do that at all. He asks Scott what he’d like to do and Scott says drag race. So dad drops $40,000 on a top-of-the-line drag racer and team to make Scott a driver. Scott blows it on his first three races and quits because he’s a brat. However, Scott says it’s because his dad’s putting too much pressure on him and is the reason he’s losing. So he runs away from home, signs on as a pit boy with the team that had been working for his dad (and who are out a lot of money because of Scott’s tantrum), and tries to learn the trade from the bottom up.
After the team loses a few races, they finally do well in Vegas and Scott takes the driver out drinking. The driver suggests ending the night, but Scott insists on one more and then convinces the driver to flirt with one of the waitresses. Scott leaves and, the next morning, the driver isn’t there. The team puts Scott in the car instead and he wins. Turns out the driver got assaulted by the waitress’ boyfriend so Scott has to drive for the rest of the season.
Another driver, who put his driving career on hold to be part of Scott’s team and is pissed that his job evaporated due to Scott’s brattiness is now pissed at Scott’s team leader for not hiring him as the driver. They’d been wanting to work together for years and now that an opportunity opens up, Scott gets the slot. It’s almost like this driver who has dedicated his life to the sport is resentful of this entitled little shit having every opportunity handed to him and then squandering it at the expense of the people around him.
Scott continues to do well, ends up in the finals against the driver who’s angry at him, and ultimately loses. The driver wins the trophy and Scott gets the second-place puppy. Someone asks him what he plans to do with it and Scott says he’s going to give it to the old woman from the beginning. Scott’s dad and girlfriend walk up to congratulate him because they’d secretly been watching the whole time. THE END.
Credit must be given to a film that so deftly combines loathsomeness and vacuity in such a short span. Burnout is only 75 minutes in my cut, but boy does it feel longer. On top of that, it feels like they’re constantly padding the film. While what I describe above sounds like a plot, it’s merely a summary of the few scenes where something happens. The first fifteen minutes are dedicated to “shooting the rodeo” as Scott and his dad go to various drag races and we watch footage of people racing. Scott’s dad buys Scott’s way into the sport which just leads to a car building montage and then Scott is on the track. He qualifies to race, gets disqualified from his first two races for starting before the green light goes, and then his engine blows out on the third race. So he quits because his dad is ruining everything for him.
Thirty minutes in now, by the way. All the rest is padded with stock footage of drag racing. That’s it. That’s the entire movie. Poorly-shot footage of drag races that never communicates what’s exciting about drag racing. And then it ends.
Almost a year ago, I watched Hell On Wheels, a movie about a country superstar/Formula One champion that faces off against moonshiners. It’s not as good as that makes it sound, but it’s leaps and bounds better than this. I said of that movie that the director wasn’t “padding his movies with stock footage, he’s padding his stock footage with a movie,” and I should have saved that statement. This movie is Stock Footage: the Motion Picture. It has no pretense of a plot or motion or character development. It doesn’t even do a good job showcasing the drag racing. All it has is the face-like-a-slapped-ass hero who is the root of all his own problems whining that people aren’t catering to him enough.
So, yes, it’s the Donald Trump Jr. story, but in drag racing. That’s just more reason to stay away, though.
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