Framing John DeLorean

There were elements of this where I expected a lot more -- for instance the car factory barely gets a mention. The whole thing needed compressing to about a quarter of its length, it seemed to go on forever.

For some reason they felt the need to insert Alec Baldwin for dramatizations, padding out the story instead of going into any depth it felt like a promo for a movie instead of a documentary.

First of all, this experimental way of story telling where Alec Baldwin keeps showing up to repeat the actual video footage of John Delorean seems to be a waste of time. And I have to say it, if there is an Academy Award for the worst makeup, it should definitely be given to this documentary whetever thing we watched for 1 hr 45 mins. Alec Baldwin falls very short in acting even though he is just acting for the scenes that he watched probably hundreds of times. Everytime he shows his face with that terrible makeup and very bad acting, we kept asking why we were watching it. It takes a big effort to watch it till the end. In short, don't watch it. If you feel you have to know the story. Go read wikipedia. Probably will take less time with minimal to no cringe.

The part of this film that is actual documentary is quite good. There are plenty of interviews with people directly involved in the story, a good deal of archive footage, and some history of DeLorean's career before he founded of his own automobile company. Then there's the reenactments. They take away from the film as a whole; they're by nature difficult to pull off effectively, and here they feel like they're interrupting an otherwise well done and interesting film. Another issue is the son, and too much of him. He doesn't add much substantial insight, just an overuse of F-bombs and whining. There's enough good material in this film to keep you watching until the end, but it would have been better as a traditional documentary. Unfortunately the filmmakers used the format they did. It's as if they created an obstacle in the way their own film.

John DeLorean's rise to the top of GM, and what he did there, is even more intriguing than this film has time to show - read the wikipedia entry. He had a lot of success early in life, took big risks and cut corners/used loopholes and angered people off by his showiness, yet somehow he took very stupid and dodgy moves after GM - it is surprising he didn't end up like Iacocca running a major company after leaving GM. Starting a mass production car company from scratch was a huge blunder. A few factually errors/things I would note - he was acquitted of his second set of legal problems but the film never makes it clear..As a car buff, I cringed when some film footage of what was supposedly the GTO was shown - its actually a 1959 full size Pontiac (though later commercials show the right car), and they are wrong in saying that Chrysler was the last person to successfully start a car company in the 20s - Kaiser was successful in 1945 though the 60s (Kaiser Jeeps) then was sold off/merged into AMC.. Alec Baldwin is still clearly Alec Baldwin under the makeup, but maybe the choice of his is due to an anecdote near the end. the DeLorean car was mediocre - its V6 was not really up to it being a sports car like a Corvette or Bricklin or even a 240z which was the best 2 door 6 cylinder car of the 70s. DeLorean's marketing genius failed him or else another company would have snapped up the tooling and moved production to Japan or Germany. Even if the car had still been around when Back to the Future was big it would hardly have been a big seller or commanded a high price. Given all that, the movie includes a lot of information I never knew about, like the involvement of Colin Chapman that I would like to double check out to see how accurate it is. The thing that is unusual and maybe a little disconcerting is them constantly showing the backstage/back of camera view of the re-enactments... and dressing room shots. I have never seen that approach before

If you're not totally familiar w/this story from older docs, news, etc. then the doc part of this docudrama more than adequately will fill you in on this remarkable swing from creative genius? (decades ahead of his time) to criminal activities and finally how his life ended up. Good actual footage & family interviews make it real & personable. The dramatic part was OK, but to me didn't add that much. DeLorean could have used some advice from current wealthy politicians on which lawyers to hire who would know best how to hide the greed (e.g. overseas).