“Trading Paint” stars John Travolta as Sam ‘The Man” Munroe, a local racing legend at the Talladega Short Track and owner of the race car driven by his son Cam Munroe (Toby Sebastian from Game of Thrones).
There’s a line early in the movie where the track announcers proclaim that the fans are watching “a true Southern soap opera” and they could have easily been talking about the movie itself as Cam leaves his father’s race team to drive for Sam’s longtime arch rival, Bob Linsky (Michael Madsen).
Unfortunately Travolta and Madsen are not playing the Vincent and Vic Vega from the Tarantino universe, but simply dirt rack race car drivers that really don’t like each other (although we never find out the reason behind their hatred).
Meanwhile, Sam is romancing divorcee Becca (Shania Twain), his first time in the dating scene since his wife passed away in a car accident when Cam was a young boy.
Twain gives a good performance in a role that does not give the country music superstar much to work with for her feature film debut.
https://twitter.com/ShaniaTwain/status/976873642662428672
Kevin Dunn, a dependable character actor who has starred in such films as Dave, Little Big League, Draft Day, and Hot Shots!, is along for the ride as Stumpy, Sam’s longtime friend and mechanic and while Travolta has an odd Southern accent going on, Dunn manages to keep a straight face and gives a solid performance.
There are some movies that are so bad they are good and unfortunately, “Trading Paint” does not fall in that category. It’s really just 89 minutes (although it seems much longer) of waiting for something to happen.
“Trading Paint” is currently streaming on Amazon Prime.
TRADING PAINT (Rated R)
Scale of 1-10: 5
