My biggest fear with "3" is that its release will now prevent the possibility of a bona fide Hollywood feature biopic -- a treatment the Dale Earnhardt story certainly merits.
Earnhardt's real-life tale is already a perfectly written script, so it would have been difficult for the makers of "3" to produce a wholesale screw-up. But there's something missing from this latest in ESPN's noteworthy series of sports films. It would have been easy for "3" to go overboard in any number of directions -- too much on-track action, too much melodrama, too much hero-worship. Instead, you get the feeling that filmmakers sensed this danger and wound up with the opposite problem: too much restraint.
There are several strands of storytelling running through "3," and because none of them is done justice, the film ends without any impact (quite literally, in fact). The themes of father-son bonding, of growing into yourself, of separating yourself from the pack -- all are ultimately shortchanged by a movie that can't quite seem to figure out which tale it wants to tell.
As a Sunday night TV movie, "3" stands out: Barry Pepper largely succeeds in his portrayal of a Carolina boy gone big-time, and Elizabeth Mitchell does well as Earnhardt's patient and intelligent wife. It doesn't do anything disastrously wrong; it just doesn't quite do everything right. Here's hoping Hollywood still sees an opening for a full-scale picture that gives Earnhardt's story the penetrating delivery it deserves.
Earnhardt's real-life tale is already a perfectly written script, so it would have been difficult for the makers of "3" to produce a wholesale screw-up. But there's something missing from this latest in ESPN's noteworthy series of sports films. It would have been easy for "3" to go overboard in any number of directions -- too much on-track action, too much melodrama, too much hero-worship. Instead, you get the feeling that filmmakers sensed this danger and wound up with the opposite problem: too much restraint.
There are several strands of storytelling running through "3," and because none of them is done justice, the film ends without any impact (quite literally, in fact). The themes of father-son bonding, of growing into yourself, of separating yourself from the pack -- all are ultimately shortchanged by a movie that can't quite seem to figure out which tale it wants to tell.
As a Sunday night TV movie, "3" stands out: Barry Pepper largely succeeds in his portrayal of a Carolina boy gone big-time, and Elizabeth Mitchell does well as Earnhardt's patient and intelligent wife. It doesn't do anything disastrously wrong; it just doesn't quite do everything right. Here's hoping Hollywood still sees an opening for a full-scale picture that gives Earnhardt's story the penetrating delivery it deserves.