Tony Scott - 15 Kick Ass Scenes To Remember Him By

6. €œHe€™s going high€ €“ Race Day €“ Days of Thunder (1990)

Released at the very beginning of the €˜90s, Days of Thunder is very much an €˜80s movie. For his third collaboration with Simpson and Bruckheimer, Scott effectively remade his first, Top Gun, but that€™s not to say he didn€™t do it well. Despite the change of scenery and the grave similarities to Top Gun, the challenge Scott was faced with would have been very different. Telling the same story maybe, but for the action scenes especially, Scott wasn€™t afforded the luxury of just doing the same thing again. The story of Days of Thunder is largely irrelevant. The short of it is that Maverick is now called Cole Trickle and he€™s a NASCAR driver. Nicole Kidman has replaced Kelly McGillis and Robert Duvall, Randy Quaid, Cary Elwes, Michael Rooker and John C. Reilly have tagged along for the ride in a further example of Tony Scott€™s films being very well cast. This is the sort of film that€™s all about the finale, a race in which Cole Trickle competes against his nemesis, the climax is what this film is for, and Scott delivers. Hans Zimmer synthesised score pounds like it doesn€™t yet realise the €˜80s is over and we€™re off! Now this isn€™t the most subtly directed sequence you€™re likely to see but it€™s befitting of the film and it works. As Cole speeds around the track the communication with Robert Duvall€™s crewmember, Harry Hogge, is constant. The cuts are as quick as the cars, from a close up of Cruise€™s face, to a 2-shot of Kidman and Duvall looking concerned, to the exterior of the car and back again€and again. Scott effectively puts us in the race, in Cruise€™s head and occasionally reminds us whom he€™s racing for. As shouting ascends, the music gets faster and the crowd cheer for more, and so do we.
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David is a film critic, writer and blogger for WhatCulture and a few other sites including his own, www.yakfilm.com Follow him on twitter @yakfilm