INSIDE FAMED AUTO FLOP
Film reveals the real DeLorean
The DeLorean is probably the least successful iconic car or most celebrated failure ever. The gull-winged, polished silver sports car earned lousy reviews and sold poorly but it achieved immortality thanks to the time-traveling adventures of Marty McFly and Doc Brown in “Back to the Future.”
While the car remains instantly recognizable decades later, the man behind it, John DeLorean is shrouded in myth and mystery, much of it of his own making. That could change this summer with the documentary, “Framing John DeLorean,” which was released in June and the movie “Driven” is out Aug. 16.
“People know the car but there’s a ton of misinformation when it comes to John’s story,” said “DeLorean” co-director Don Argott. “We really tried to get at the root of who he was.”
DeLorean is mostly remembered for his namesake car and for being arrested in an FBI sting for smuggling cocaine to keep his struggling company afloat.
“The drug trial looks at how far you’d be willing to go to save your dream,” Argott explains.
The documentary, starring Alec Baldwin as the carmaker, recounts DeLorean’s whole saga — from the glory days as a rebellious General Motors executive, revving up successes like the Pontiac GTO and Firebird. It carries through overlooked chapters like his disastrous dealings in Northern Ireland and his embezzlement of company money that may have forced him into that drug deal. It also includes intimate interviews with his children about the impact of his rise and downfall. “He was a loving father but they were collateral damage to his schemes,” said Argott’s co-director Sheena Joyce.
“Driven” tells DeLorean’s story through the lens of Jim Hoffman, the drug mule turned government informant played by Jason Sudeikis, who tries to escape the FBI’s clutches by setting up Lee Pace’s DeLorean. The dishonesty and dysfunction also encompasses President Ronald Reagan’s war on drugs through an aggressive and ambitious FBI agent, portrayed by Corey Stoll.
Director Nick Hamm believes Hoffman is the key to telling a character-based buddy dramedy about truth, lies, cons and dreams.
“DeLorean was one of the first CEOs to brand himself as part of the commodity he was selling — ‘Buy my car and you can have my life, go to these parties like a swinging, successful man with 19-year-old wife,’” Hamm explained.
“He was a visionary but he was a con man as well,” said Hamm. “Hoffman was a total liar and DeLorean is a liar too. My film is about two con men sort of falling in love with each other.”
But Argott and Joyce take issue with what they call an exaggeration of the relationship between the two men in “Driven.”
“Our film is a truthful accounting,” said Joyce, explaining that Hoffman and DeLorean were not friends and met just twice.
To prepare for his role, Pace spoke to people who knew DeLorean and were taken in by his charm.
“He loved life, he loved his family and friends,” the actor said. “He made one compromise after another to keep his dream alive and flew a little too close to the sun but there’s somet-hing beautiful about that.”