Framing John DeLorean (2019)

(On Cable TV, July 2020) The premise of Framing John DeLorean (“Why hasn’t there been no movie about John DeLorean given the dramatic elements that it contains?”) is now dated since the release of 2018’s Driven (featuring Lee Pace as DeLorean), but that doesn’t stop the film from being a compulsively watchable overview of DeLorean’s life from his heydays at GM to the aftermath of his bankruptcy and legal proceedings. The intelligible and absorbing talking-head format is considerably enlivened by fictional recreations of events featuring a heavily made-up Alex Baldwin happily delving into the role, and another excuse to see a glamorous Morena Baccarin on-screen as DeLorean’s wife. Unusually enough, there’s quite a bit of footage about the making of those sequences, and the actors are asked to expand upon their thoughts on the character they play… which works better than expected. Interview subjects include his kids (who are not happy about the way their family was destroyed by his hubris), Back to the Future producer Bob Gale to talk about the cultural impact of the film on DMC, and various people who were involved in the company at the time. The film pulls no punches in highlighting that even if DeLorean was not sent to prison, he still lost his company, his Fifth-Avenue Manhattan residence and his family, and ended up living the last few years of his life in a one-bedroom apartment. I liked Framing John DeLorean quite a bit more than Driven—it’s more entertaining, far more detailed, significantly more even-handed in its depiction of the character and delves into a fun metafictional game, as it allows Baldwin and others to influence DeLorean’s fictional depiction. The ultimate impact, however, does remain one of a classical tragic downfall—arrogance leading to bad luck leading to a desperate attempt to save it all that backfired.