Biopic (in Variety lingo) of drag-racer Shirley Muldowney, a sort of chronological quickstep through her life, thin on racetrack ambience and community, a bit thicker on the home life, generally modest in means and aims, although (through no fault of its own) a little immodest, even promiscuous, in critical reception. The bulk of critical promiscuity was expended on Bonnie Bedelia, an actress-y actress whose big advantage here was to be not as yet an overly familiar face. Good old Beau Bridges, meanwhile, as a key figure in Muldowney's personal as well as professional life, does his familiar, reliable, self-effacing job, and fails to get much notice. Muldowney's triumphs in a traditionally male arena can of course greatly accelerate the feminist pulse; and yet (one of the nicer points of the movie) her motives and her convictions are not consciously and dogmatically feminist: as witness her "Cha-Cha" Muldowney phase. What her motives and convictions are instead, however, are rather underexamined: not one of the nicer points. With Hoyt Axton and Bill McKinney; directed by Jonathan Kaplan. (1983) — Duncan Shepherd
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