Cinema: Hot Car

CORVETTE SUMMER

Directed by Matthew Robbins

Screenplay by Hal Barwood and Matthew Robbins

To enjoy Corvette Summer it helps to abandon common sense. In this film there is not a single credible plot development or convincing character. What the movie offers instead is a few benign laughs, some neatly staged action sequences and a bit of appealing moralizing about the evils of materialism. As long as one doesn’t demand too much of it, Corvette Summer delivers a very pleasant two hours of escape.

The film marks the graceful directing debut of Matthew Robbins, who, with partner Hal Barwood, wrote the scripts for The Sugarland Express and The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars. Corvette Summer shares the earlier films’ jaunty, all-American tone. The hero is a recent high school grad, Kenny (Mark Hamill), who leaves home for Vegas after his prized Stingray is stolen. While chasing down the car, he meets up with a prattling, fledgling hooker (Annie Potts) who initiates him into sex. Suffice it to say that love and virtue eventually triumph over pimps and car thieves.

Though Hamill and Potts are appealing performers, their characters seem too singleminded, and at times simpleminded, for comfort. Their love affair as well as their search for the car are both overtly stage-managed. But Barwood believes in his movie’s every frame, and his sincerity comes across in its exhilarating pace and tender moments. Though Corvette Summer relies on hot air rather than narrative propulsion for fuel, it breezes past the finish line. —Frank Rich