The Race-ist... a title joke and car mod subculture is extended into a "feel good" feature film trailing in the dust of The Fast & The Furious, Days of Thunder and yes, even Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby - complete with action, comedy and drama. After watching The Race-ist it's easy to see the connection: movies are just like vehicle modifications, if they're cheap and not fitted properly - they tend to fail miserably. As Proudly South African as I am, I wouldn't be able to recommend The Race-ist with a straight face. I really wanted to like The Race-ist... but it just took too long to get better.
The Race-ist follows the zero-to-hero saga of Lukas (Palm), who's always dreamed of becoming a "Race-ist". When his day finally arrives... he starts on the road to victory, banding with Oom Nel (Roberts) and a bunch of okes, who've come up with a fuel to revolutionise the sport forever, but will his estanged father (Pienaar) stuff things up for him again?
It's great to see a South African film, which doesn't centre on "Apart-hate" and violent crime for a change. The Race-ist has plenty of misplaced passion behind it and in a weird way, it kind of epitomizes street and track racing. I mean it's all image... the flashy cars, gorgeous girls and determined racing. If your car's the fastest, you get the girls and the chequered flag. Although, that's a hollow victory and if a film fails to engage you from a humanistic standpoint, then it's as good as paging through the latest issue of Speed & Sound, who are one of the main sponsors... surprise, surprise.
The Race-ist also features a host of SA celebs including: Kurt Darren, DJ Fresh, Gaositwe Getyes, Mark Stent and Bad Brad Wood. It's acting pool includes: Ian Roberts, Jonathan Pienaar, Craig Palm, Nicole Smart, Murray Todd, Brandon Auret and Strini Pillai. The Race-ist is character-driven to the point that if you lift all the characters out of the film, there's almost no story left behind. Kurt Darren is brought in as a Daniel Craig "look-a-like", Mark Stent as Vin Diesel's brother, Jonathan Pienaar tries to cage Nic Cage and Ian Roberts reprises yet another Mr. Miyagi character.
Individually, the cast members could really shine... but when you're writing for twelve characters - you might as well call it Egoli: To The Streets and turn it into a TV Series. The "tjoep-tjoep" of car immobilisers, the repetitive product placements, the Corne & Twakkie wannabes, the Guy Ritchie "trick" shots... come on! You can admire Andrew "Revthump" Wilmot's sheer determination as writer-director, but this is one vanity project that will be remembered for the heaps of experience it generated rather than its intrinsic entertainment value.
The main problem with The Race-ist is that Craig Palm is meant to be the lead, but isn't... The writers have given too much prevalence to the other 11 characters in a Guy Ritchie sort of way, but the plot calls for a lead in the shape of a Will Ferrell, a Tom Cruise - or a Paul Walker/Vin Diesel co-lead as in The Fast & The Furious. While Palm can act and is fairly convincing as Lukas, a stronger lead would have been able to hold the film together without having to introduce voice-overs from an "omnipotent" character. As a result, the ensemble is bloated with unnecessary characters... possibly even worse than The Pink Panther 2. The different factions aren't in conflict like Guy Ritchie's classics and this leaves them teetering on either the good or the bad without much driving purpose.
The Race-ist is also indecisive when it comes to its identity as a film and not because of its diversity either. It knows it's South African... most of the time. However, the soft-focus on action, comedy and drama just doesn't compete with its strong influences. The stunts and racing scenes are lucky if they're gone in 60 seconds, the comedy has the collective punch of an average Nandos ad and the drama is a mixture of SA's favourite thematic rip-off, The Karate Kid and a tin of Red Bull energy drink. To make matters worse, it straddles the solid line of farce and serious contender, with the lack of laughs feeding into the notion that it's actually meant to be taken seriously.
We've already got Fast & Furious and as much as the copy-an-international-winning-franchise-for-success business strategy has worked in the past, it's not as easy in the movie business. One can talk about budget, about time constraints and about limitations, but it all comes down to quality content, raw talent, solid planning and working within your means. The Race-ist is one of those niche films, which may fascinate a select few for its close-to-home South African celebrity culture and trivial significance, but runs out of gas... slipping out of your mind faster than an MTV music video in reverse. Hopefully, the next project will get a roadworthy first before overheating.
The bottom line: Glossy.
