Motorama (1991) 90m.
Pre-packaged cult item was written by Joseph Minion, whose first produced screenplay was AFTER HOURS. This has the feel of an earlier project that he'd spent previous years ironing out. A ten-year old boy named Gus (Jordan Christopher Michael) steals a Mustang and drives through an imaginary America collecting cards for a game called Motorama, meeting various eccentric characters along the way and winding up in all sorts of trouble. I like to imagine MOTORAMA coming from the point of view of a boy in the back seat of a car during a long family trip, gazing out of the window at the empty landscape and having daydreams which are interspersed by pit stops at gas stations and diners. Everything that happens in this film is possible (and if you don't believe a ten-year old can steal a car then I dare you to leave one parked outside a playground with the keys in the ignition) but that doesn't by necessity make any of it believable. So it's neither real or unreal and too self-aware to be effectively surreal. Is there anything left?
The best way to watch MOTORAMA is to think of it as an alternate-universe story. Minion tells us as much by creating mythical States and a non-existent game as the story's framework. This information isn't revealed to us from the outset, however, and I'm not sure if that's a wise move. The first half hour may be irritating to some viewers ("Can't anyone see that this guy is just a kid?? Are they blind, or stupid, or what?") and the characters Gus encounters are phoney: he doesn't meet people, just guest stars. It's a great supporting cast (Robert Picardo, Mary Woronov, Jack Nance, Michael J. Pollard, Meat Loaf, Drew Barrymore and Dick Miller, to name a few) but because they're all veterans of offbeat/cult films we expect them to be weird before they even open their mouths. It's OK once we figure out that MOTORAMA exists in its own universe, but until then it seems that Minion is trying too hard to show us how 'out there' his story is. The point where it turns around, for me at least, is when Gus unexpectedly fouls up in the middle of one of his rip-off stunts and we realize that he's not just some wise-ass smart kid who is going to run rings around all the adults he meets. In a film where extreme situations are treated lightly, it's surprising to find a scene mid-way through the story that has consequences.
The character of Gus is a difficult one to fall in step with. Jordan Christopher Michael is neither appealing nor obnoxious in the role and MOTORAMA is not a film for kids, so he is expected to act and talk like an adult - so much so that you begin to think that the part of Gus could just as easily be played by an adult. So why make the central character ten years old? He's too savvy for this road trip to be treated as a learning exercise and is resourceful enough to get along without the support of adults (mostly, they're only a hindrance). The only 'juvenile' element of his character is his obsession to collect game cards. The decision to make Gus ten years old makes some sense in the final scenes of the film, which indicate that the alternate universe idea has been expanded into an alternate future. Instead of a drowning man seeing his life flash before his eyes, a drowning boy sees his future flash before his eyes and the opportunity to change it has been implanted in his mind. At any rate, Gus's life seems predestined. The open road, a Mustang, and a gas-station game called Motorama: these all point the direction his life is to take. And with a name like Gus, you'd pretty much expect him to wind up a pump jockey. It's a future that would suit him fine - after all, consider the alternatives we've been witness to in the previous hour and a half.
sburridge@hotmail.com
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