Finally, the hydroplane racing sports flick that the world has been waiting for. “Madison” tells the by-the-numbers tale of a team of middle-American small town motorboat racers who, in their effort to prove that they can go the distance, end up with the fate of their town hanging in the balance. Positively oozing with the type of overly familiar sentimentality and underdog woe usually reserved for the small screen, there are no surprises to be found in this waterlogged heart-warmer. “Madison’s” only saving grace is that it is based on the true story of the 1971 Madison Regatta Race, so we know that, at least to some degree, this isn’t completely a case of the Hollywood Plot Recycling Machine churning out another clone for the whole family to enjoy. Nonetheless, the film is one heartwarming cliché after another, right down to the deadly experimental fuel that the team concocts for when their boat needs that extra boost. “It’s too risky! You can’t endanger your family’s future!” “But if I don’t do this, I’m nothing!” (Not actual dialog, but not far off.)
If you’ve ever seen a movie before, the question whether or not victory in the big race will occur, thereby preserving the town, the man’s family, and his self-esteem is never in question. With consequences piling up ridiculously high over the course of the movie, we know darn well that salvation is coming to Madison whether we care to sit through it or not. Coincidentally, “Madison” stars two actors whose most famous roles are messianic by varying degrees. The first is headliner Jim Caviezel as racing team leader Jim McCormick, who so memorably played Mel Gibson’s Jesus, now has a passion for his motorboat. Of course, the fact that the town needs saving at all is the result of McCormick’s own prideful action, something more in league with costar Jake Lloyd’s Anakin Skywalker in “The Phantom Menace”. Lloyd, as McCormick’s hydroplane-adoring son, remains remarkably close to the same age as he was in “Star Wars” - the only giveaway that this film was shot in 2001. Perhaps the film’s distributors were waiting for the popularity of motor sports to return to their early seventies glory days. Nascar-mania aside, no such luck.
The above-average cast is filled out by Mary McCormack as the long-suffering wife, Paul Dooley as the gusto mayor, and Bruce Dern as McCormick’s own personal Obi-Wan Kenobi style-mentor. They’ve all endured years of their town’s boat, the Miss Madison, being heckled by the big city bad dogs, but when the town is selected in a drawing to host the big 1971 Regatta Race, things get volatile. The town can’t possibly afford the prize money required, and is encouraged to decline. But McCormick, God bless him, isn’t about to roll over in defeat, so, in an act of pure defiance, accepts the challenge on behalf of his unwitting town. But where the heck will all the money come from? Along the way of jumping that hurdle, the Miss Madison goes through two pilots, various crew members, and its starboard panel. McCormick is as big of an underdog as the silver screen has ever seen, and considering the cost of losing at the end, and the unlikelihood of winning, you’d think there would be a few more chips in the character’s assured demeanor. But that picked nit aside, Caviezel and company are not bad in the movie, even if the parts are no great shakes. It’s really too bad that considering all the time Caviezel’s character spends in the garage trying to repair the boat, no one thought to put young Anakin on the job. He likes to fix things, and he’s not a bad racer either. But this is papa McCormick’s race to win, and as history attests, (as well as, we’re reminded, the coverage of “ABC’s Wide World of Sports”,) that deadly experimental fuel comes through in the end.
I suppose “Madison” is really just another harmless movie, even if it is built out of clichés from the foundation of a supposedly spectacular true story. Film buffs will find little to warm up to here, but for everyone else just looking for a motorboat-driven underdog story (especially people from Madison), this period piece will raise their spirits for a while.
- Jim Tudor