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DVD Snake and Mongoose
 Rating: 5.6 Genres: Sport Director: Wayne Holloway Writers: Wayne Holloway, Alan Paradise Stars: Ian Ziering, Jesse Williams, Noah Wyle |
| Storyline The untold story of how Southern California drag racers, Don “The Snake” Prudhomme and Tom “The Mongoose” McEwen combined with corporate giants to change the face of sports and ultimately became the most famous rivalry in racing history. |
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| Details: Country: USA Release Date: 6 September 2013 (USA) |
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| Box Office Opening Weekend: $12,089 (USA) (16 August 2013) Gross: $152,200 (USA) (27 September 2013) |
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DVD Snake and Mongoose
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4 comments
Man, this poor movie stunk up the box office. Too bad, it was an excellent, and dare I say it? – family friendly film. I remember buying the Hot Wheels cars, I remember Snake vs. Mongoose on Wide World of Sports, and I immensely enjoyed the more or less true story about the friends, rivals, and ultimately friends again pair who helped take racing to a higher level.
Not too many big names here, John Heard has a minor role, Noah Wyle has a bigger one, but the low-lying stars, Richard Blake and Jesse Williams, and also the delightfully unassuming Ashley Hinshaw as Lynn Prudhomme, will take you back to the 70's, when gas was cheap, cars were fast, and people sadly died when things went wrong with forward-engine top fuel dragsters.
Give this nice film a try.
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.
Let me first start by saying I am a huge drag racing fan, and have been my entire life. Drag racing is in fact the only sport I follow. I'm also a movie fanatic, and know a good film when I see one. I couldn't wait to see this movie. I grew up watching a lot of their story unfold, so the old footage used in the film was a real treat. Unfortunately, that was the only treat in this God awful excuse for a movie. It was literally one of the worst movies I've ever seen. How it is currently rating over a 3 on IMDb, is as perplexing as how this fiasco ever made it to print in the first place. It was poorly written, poorly directed, and horribly acted. I've read the other reviews on here, and it's clear the reviewers are drag racing fans, and writing their glowing reviews based solely on nostalgia, and some sense of loyalty to the sport of drag racing, rather than on the actual merits of the film.
Yes, this film made me nostalgic for the old school rails and funny cars, but that doesn't make up for such a failed attempt at entertainment. I couldn't be more disappointed, mostly because the stories of these heroes of drag racing were horribly represented. Watching this movie was a lot like watching an old episode of the Threes Company. Yes, it's cool to see what use to be, but still painfully un-entertaining to watch. The only other redeeming quality was watching Ron Capps' cameo, with him awkwardly standing by as a statue of Lou Baney, and Alexis DeJoria's two second speaking cameo, actually not too bad as the ancillary character Paula.
If you love drag racing, then see the movie for the cool old footage, but be warned, you'll probably end up as disappointed as I was. If you're not a die hard drag racing fan, you'll probably just skip straight to the disappointment part.
"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.