Winning

WINNING is a lousy movie. It’s poorly constructed, features a show-stoppingly bad performance from a major supporting actor, and fails to excite even in its centerpiece racing scenes.

The film, set in the world of stock car racing, begins with Paul Newman winning a race. He has a few drinks at the victory party, wanders around town, and charms a local floozy. Three or four scenes later, they’re married, and the rest of the film depends upon my investment in their relationship. But here’s the thing: for a love story to work, we have to fall in love (even if it’s just a little) with the characters. With WINNING, I don’t even know who these people are, much less have a reason to care whether or not they make it as a family. There’s your weak foundation. The film is poorly shot and edited; with jagged and wobbly camera movements competing for your distraction with montages and transitions of such jarring mediocrity that it’s hard to believe this is a feature film. Finally, Dave Grusin’s dead-jazz score is so limp that it distracts us with its mediocrity.

While Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, and Robert Wagner are all as fine and professional as you’d expect, Richard Thomas (in his debut role, playing Woodward’s son) is remarkably bad. Now, I like Thomas. Some years back, I saw him do a “King John” in which he absolutely nailed the role. But here, just starting out, he so overacts that I felt like it was all the more seasoned professionals could do to refrain from smacking him.

So you’re got your bad construction and your distracting performance, but it’s a racing movie, right? The racing must be pretty good. Nope. It’s just a bunch of shots of cars and closeups of eyes, with an announcer telling me what’s actually happening. I admit that I’m not a race fan, finding the sport to be even more boring than golf. But a good racing movie should have drawn me in nonetheless, made me feel the rush when the good guy passes the bad. Nope. I fell asleep during the climactic race.

As performers, I like Newman, Woodward, and Wagner. I’d have loved to see them together in a better film. Unfortunately, this isn’t it. WINNING is a loser.