Finally Watched: Days of Thunder (1990) – Men, Machines, and Feelings

Tom Cruise and the booked and busy Anne Hathaway recently announced there would be a sequel to the 1990 sports movie Days of Thunder (Nights of Lightening, perhaps?) coming in 2028. I’ve seen a lot of Cruise’s films, but Days of Thunder was not one of them, so I immediately set that right.

Set around the world of NASCAR, chronic eye-roller Tim Daland (Randy Quaid) is an ambitious businessman desperate to build his own racing team. He places a cocky but skilled Cole Trickle (Tom Cruise) behind the wheel and puts the surly crew chief, Harry Hogge (Robert Duvall), in Trickle’s ear. While Trickel and Hogge initially butt heads, their relationship is strengthened by trust that develops into a surprising found-family tenderness.

This movie is good. It’s warm, it’s punchy, and it ticks a lot of boxes movies these days leave unchecked altogether. Tony Scott as director brings that hazy-days charm we’ve come to expect from him and a rough-and-readiness that captures the unpredictability and danger of the sport. It is a complete palette cleanser to the antiseptic cleanliness of the recent F1 and I worry the upcoming sequel will model the latter instead of staying true to the former.

With a running time of 1 hour 45 minutes, this movie speeds through a range of stories and finds a way to connect them all. The Duvall and Cruise pairing is why this film works so well; the father-son dynamic they gravitate towards is made authentic by those little moments where they drink, roughhouse, play pranks, or race each other by foot.

It’s hard to talk about all these men without aching to mention the one woman in this film, neuroscientist Dr. Claire Lewicki (Nicole Kidman). Despite her doctorate and expertise in the field, she is still relegated to little more than Trickle’s love interest, which is a shame; however, this can be marginally overlooked as she appears late in the film, and I’d peg the odds of her returning for the self-coined Nights of Lightening at zero.

The story of Days of Thunder was developed by Robert Towne, who also serves as screenwriter, and Tom Cruise, whose hand is evident as soon as his character rides in on a motorcycle a la Top Gun and Dr Lewicki pins up against the wall to have her way with him. Much like the sport itself, the film doesn’t waste time giving you a play-by-play on the rules of the game; basically, you finish first, you win, and if someone taps your bumper, it means they like you. As a person who remains uneducated about both car-based sports, one thing that is never clear is why NASCAR is any different from Formula 1, but I digress.

Days of Thunder will try and trick you. It will blast electric power ballads, cake everything in dirt, and show you so many cars whizzing round in a circle to make you feel dizzy. It does all of this, so you ignore that it translates to a language where men can talk about their feelings. Trickle’s sobering line, “I’m more afraid of being nothing more than being hurt,” is evidence of this. In the world of Days of Thunder men can share their feelings, be heard, and maybe even heal—and I call that a win.

If Days of Thunder has been haunting your watchlist, I wouldn’t move it right to the top. That being said I’d certainly race to see it before the sequel.