guywhoacts
Racing with the Moon is a fantastic film about people and emotions. My favorite thing about was the attention to detail. From the pool scene to the abortion scene, every moment keeps you engaged.It's a roller coaster of a film in the best way possible. We also get to see the pairing up of Sean Penn and Nicolas Cage again which is a lot of fun. They have great chemistry.
JLRMovieReviews
Before Sean Penn and Nicolas Cage became big names, they starred in this coming-of-age movie, leading up to the enlistment of WWII. Elizabeth McGovern, from Ordinary People and this year's Downton Abbey, costars as a girl that Sean likes and thinks is rich, when in fact, she only lives in a fancy house, because her mother is a maid there. Nicolas Cage is a love-em-and-leave-em type, who uses girls for his pleasure and then tosses them away. One girl of his gets "in trouble" and needs money for an abortion. Nick and Sean try to get the money by playing pool and betting with marines. But when that doesn't turn out the way they planned, Sean asks Elizabeth for it, who in turn tries to steal and pawn something from the house. Nick really acts like a jerk to the girl and he and Sean have a falling out. But because of their deep friendship and the fact they're leaving soon, they're friends again. Besides the plot (which I've practically told,) the film's main assets are the star's acting and charm (including Ms. McGovern) which make it all very credible. We are allowed to see the youth and naivety of the period and their zest for life, and we see the characters, not wanting to grow up, trying to hold on to today, despite the inevitable war coming to disrupt their world. Racing with the Moon is an early Sean Penn highlight and one that should be discovered today.
futures-1
"Racing with the Moon" (1984): Richard Benjamin directed Sean Penn, Nicolas Cage, Elizabeth McGovern, Crispen Glover, Carol Kane, Michael Madsen, Dana Carvey - the list goes on - in this "showcase" film, where lots of talent received a major boost. Set in 1942, only weeks before two best friends ship out with the Marines for World War II, we share intimate, funny, pathetic, sad, frightening, and ambivalent moments with flawed people you really come to believe you know, and deep down just have to like. This is a bittersweet, not sugary, nor hopeless story. It's believable, with the mixed emotions, set in that confusing, frozen summer between child and adulthood. Scoring is appropriate, photography is somewhat contrived in spots, but that's the 80's for you. The "truth" of the story, and the talented actors are why you will appreciate "Racing with the Moon".
jmbockman
Unlike most Hollywood movies that must be pigeonholed into categories--comedy, drama, romance--this movie dared to be all of these. And it dared to be low-key, without large, manufactured tragedies or plot hooks. Rather, it had the elegiac mood and idiosyncratic details of a fine short story, with its characters neither good nor bad but human, their lives honestly and touchingly observed by a sensitive screenwriter and director.
AD
