Speedway Junky

Midnight Cowboy wannabe about a teen (Jesse Bradford) who runs away to Vegas in order to raise some quick cash in order to live his dream as a race car driver. However, his dreams are shattered upon arrival in Vegas and he quickly becomes friends with a gay hustler (Jordan Brower) and his extended group of friends including a former hooker (Daryl Hannah) and a bisexual hustler (Johnathon Taylor Thomas).

Jesse Bradford's accent comes and goes. He makes a poor choice for a leading man in this film. Jordan Brower on the other hand is perfectly cast. Johnathon Taylor Thomas is sensational and Daryl Hannah makes the most of a small, but important role. The start and end of this film are very weak, but the midsection is compelling and gripping.

Rated R; Violence, Profanity, Sexual Content.

Jesse Bradford is a good looking guy (those lips!)& his acting in this film is very good. I'm not a Daryl Hannah fan, but was impressed by her performance here. Jonathan Taylor Thomas is & always will be an annoying little twerp. This story of teen hustling is familiar. It's got everything you'd expect from a movie like this: An old fat pervert, lust, violence, car chase, street life, gay & bi-sexuality, teen angst, unrequited love, booze, death, etc. There's a dance sequence thrown in, but I was embarrassed for all involved, it was awkward, pointless, & goofy.

I suspect you'll only really like this if you saw it back in the day.

It's just a mess. Partly because the story is 99% from Johnny's point of view, then one of the few significant context switches features Eric telling Veronica he's frustrated because he loves Johnny, as if that's not the most obvious part of the film.

Annoying, but minor.

The Johnny/Eric story is the heart of the film and it's a good one.

But there's so many problems here. The movie can't decide if it wants to be edgy and a somewhat realistic view of the lives of young hustlers in Vegas or if it wants to be kindergarten.

Then there's the completely surreal ending starting with JT handing the two a baggie of money and drugs then shows up a week later demanding they return it like they run a safe deposit box-- they live in a motel.

But it gets far more surreal when bullets fly because JT shoots a can of tomato soup off Johnny's head and Eric shows up two seconds later and thinks Johnny has been shot.

It's hard to fathom how off the rails this goes.

Well, I disagree. I think Speedway Junky was very well acted.

Jordan Brower's heart-felt unrequited love really getting to me. I ended up wishing there was a boy out there like that for me. Daryl Hannah had a good supporting role, as did Jesse.

I thought it was very well done. It won't be everyone's cup of tea, but it's definitely worth watching. I loved it.

I'd been wanting to see this film for a while, and I'm very disappointed now that I have. The first thing I found problematic was the complete lack of a plot in the first half hour. A story really needs to capture people's attention right from the start. This story did not. After that, what plot there was (which we've seen many times before -- and done much better!) was extremely contrived and totally predictable. The writing was stale and overflowing with cliches. And -- granted, though, I don't know any teenage hustlers in Vegas -- I found the characters to be completely unbelieveable. This was due partly to the hokey script but also partly to the miscasting of some of the central characters, especially Erik Alexander Gavica as "J.T." I find it hard to believe that anyone could ever REALLY think he was dangerous until after his voice had changed!

The one thing in this film I WAS pleased with -- and surprisingly so -- was Darryl Hannah's performance. I've never been much of a fan of hers, but I was impressed with her understated performance, especially given the weak material she had to work with and the fact that everyone else was overacting. I usually AM a fan of Jonathan Taylor Thomas, but even he was unfortunately miscast in this film.

"Speedway Junky" was a noble attempt, but didn't quite hit the mark.