TUCKER: THE MAN AND HIS DREAM (1988)

When they tried to buy him, he refused
When they tried to bully him, he resisted
When they tried to break him, he became an American Legend


This was what I'd describe as an "extremely solid" film. Great acting from Bridges and Landau. Fascinating story that seems to have been conveniently forgotten by most people. Fantastic production values.

With that said, for whatever reason I always felt slightly removed from the drama. Not sure what it was, but somehow it often felt.. stagey. Maybe that's the result of Coppola's overly composed shots, I don't know. Also, stuff like the repeated "hold that tiger!" sing alongs felt kind of 'cutesy' and annoying by the fifth time they are used in the movie

All the same it was a film I'd suggest everyone sees at least once. Good fun, cool cars, and you may just learn something along the way. Also noteworthy is the fact that Lucas collaborated with Coppola on the production


PS It also had really cool posters



EDIT: I had a typo in the title of this thread, it reads "TUCKET" and not "TUCKER". Could a mod fix this? I apologize for my mistake

That's a very interesting take on the movie, thank you Cylon Baby! I can definitely see it that way, when you consider it in the context of the opening "promo film" sequence.


However, I do feel like FFC should have gotten me more PO'd about what happened to Tucker. I felt slightly removed from the drama, and from Tucker's anger about his situation. I'm more PO'd about what happened to Preston Tucker now, days after watching the film, than I was while watching his life play out on screen. Maybe that's because the film, in it's "promotional short" feel, always let me know that things were going to turn out swell (somehow) in the end (and as far as the movie is concerned, they did, given that Tucker got to produce his 50 cars). You could make an angrier film from this material, and I kind of would have liked to have seen that version of the movie

However, that's not the best kind of criticism and I do appreciate what Coppola did. Like I said in my first post, it's an "extremely solid film" (Much like a Tucker itself! zing!) , and I had a generally good time watching it.

EDIT: Also have to mention that Joan Allen was great, as always. I neglected to mention it in the first post because it just kind of goes without saying. You see her listed in the cast of any given film, and you know that she will do awesome work. She's the female David Strathairn IMHO (or David Strathairn is the male Joan Allen, I'm not sure)