Movie Review: Street Racer (2008)

Street Racer (2008)

The Asylum, USA, 2008. 

Street racer Johnny Wayne (Clint Browning, who appeared in "The Terminators") spends 5 years in prison after a fatal accident. Naughty Parole Officer Briggs (Michael Crider) gives Johnny a chance to race with profits split 70:30. Well not reallya chance but more like "Or else" type offer. During daytime Johnny works in Red's (Robert Pike Daniel) garage with coworker Steve (Dustin Fitzsimons, who appeared in "Sunday School Musical"). Old and grumpy Red is the funniest character in the movie and he looks a bit like Donald Trump.

Johnny Wayne

Briggs

On evenings Johnny does community service in local clinic and meets crippled kid Danny (Connor Clayton), her sister Kelly (Dorothy Drury) and physiotherapist Teddy (Jennifer Dorogi who played warrior woman Katya in "Dragonquest"). Romance with Kelly gets complicated as Johnny caused the accident where Danny was crippled. Forced to race Johnny borrows Red's BMW and gets fired (You're fired!) when Red finds out. Luckily he already won pimped up minivan, so he does not need Red's car for the next race. Unfortunately the race was good but the car was bad, so soon Johnny is without a car again. So he crawls back to Red for help.

Danny

Kelly

Teddy

After hearing about Johnny's troubles, Red begins to coach Johnny using Go-karts. He also gives Johnny a new car. Nice car for a do it yourself- project. May be in the need of some optional extras such as wheels and engine. Briggs threatens to hurt Kelly if Johnny fails to race. He must win his old rival Mickey (Jason Ellefson) to be the Street Racing Champion.

Weird car choice for racing

Mickey

The Asylum attempts to piggyback "Speed Racer" and "Fast & The Furious" without the fun parts. Painful acting and tedious dialogue are the worst defects of the movie. The budget is extremely low, any of the cars in the final race probably cost more than the film's budget. Most of the dull racing scenes are done on the same road strip somewhere in desert. Luckily there are only few of them. However the drama is slightly better than expected (but not much). With better dialogue, better racing scenes and better acting it could have been better. Now it feels like lost potential as the plot at least attempts to imitate mainstream drama cinema. Hey, at least it's better than 200 M.P.H.!

Rating: Average (for a Asylum film)

Starring: Clint Browning, Dorothy Drury, Robert Pike Daniel, Jason Ellefson, Dustin Fitzsimons, Michael Crider, Connor Clayton, Jack Goldenberg, T.J. Zale Jr., Reggie Jernigan, Sinead McCafferty, Jennifer Dorogi, Nino Zagaroli, Benjamin Brugger, McKenna Dimond, Joel Estridge, Napoleon Calles, Michael Aleksanyan, Cody Benton, Martin D. Alcaraz, Eric Wang, Juan Navarro Jr., Michael Calles, Moso Balyan, Miguel Estrada, Brian Brinkman, Jose Ceaner, Jose Garcia, Carlos Frye, Jonny A., Oscar Elendez, Armando Cerros, Manuel Gonzalez, Sammy Piazza, Rudy Orozco, Rie Nasu, Christopher Manirong, Javier Alvarez, Steve Armas, Jaime Sanchez, Samuel Frausto, Michael Clacy, Arturo Arias, Thuy Pham, Alex Castillo, Luis Ramirez, Gregory Paul Smith 

Director: Teo Konuralp