''Framing John DeLorean'' is a 2019 American
documentary film
A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...
directed by
Don Argott
Don Argott (born September 14, 1972) is an American documentary filmmaker and musician. He has directed several documentary films and has also worked as a producer and cinematographer. He co-owns the production company 9.14 Pictures with prod ...
and
Sheena M. Joyce and written by Dan Greeney and Alexandra Orton, about the life of
John DeLorean
John Zachary DeLorean (January 6, 1925 – March 19, 2005) was an American engineer, inventor, and executive in the U.S. automobile industry, widely known for his work at General Motors and as founder of the DeLorean Motor Company.
DeLorean mana ...
. The film stars
Alec Baldwin
Alexander Rae Baldwin III (born April 3, 1958) is an American actor, comedian, and producer. In his early career, Baldwin played both leading and supporting roles in a variety of films such as Tim Burton's ''Beetlejuice'' (1988), Mike Nichol ...
,
Morena Baccarin
Morena Silva de Vaz Setta Baccarin (; born 2 June 1979) is a Brazilian actress known for portraying Inara Serra in the sci-fi series '' Firefly'' and its follow-up film '' Serenity'', Vanessa in the superhero comedy franchise ''Deadpool'', Jessi ...
,
Josh Charles
Joshua Aaron Charles (born September 15, 1971) is an American actor. He is best known for the roles of Dan Rydell on '' Sports Night; '' Will Gardner on ''The Good Wife'', which earned him two Primetime Emmy Award nominations; and his early wo ...
,
Dean Winters
Dean Gerard Winters (born July 20, 1964) is an American actor. He is known for his role as Ryan O'Reily on the HBO prison drama ''Oz (TV series), Oz'' and had roles in TV series'' Rescue Me (U.S. TV series), Rescue Me'', ''30 Rock'', ''Sex and th ...
,
Michael Rispoli
Michael Rispoli is an American character actor. He was a contender for the role of Tony Soprano in the HBO television series ''The Sopranos,'' but was ultimately cast as Jackie Aprile, a recurring character in the show’s first season. Rispo ...
and
Jason Jones. The film was released on June 7, 2019, by
Sundance Selects.
While the film is structured as a documentary with a number of involved people as interview subjects, the film also features reenactments of certain important scenes of DeLorean's story. It also features behind the scenes footage of the participants of the reenactment scenes with the cast and crew, who provide their views on DeLorean out-of-character.
Cast
*
Alec Baldwin
Alexander Rae Baldwin III (born April 3, 1958) is an American actor, comedian, and producer. In his early career, Baldwin played both leading and supporting roles in a variety of films such as Tim Burton's ''Beetlejuice'' (1988), Mike Nichol ...
as
John DeLorean
John Zachary DeLorean (January 6, 1925 – March 19, 2005) was an American engineer, inventor, and executive in the U.S. automobile industry, widely known for his work at General Motors and as founder of the DeLorean Motor Company.
DeLorean mana ...
*
Morena Baccarin
Morena Silva de Vaz Setta Baccarin (; born 2 June 1979) is a Brazilian actress known for portraying Inara Serra in the sci-fi series '' Firefly'' and its follow-up film '' Serenity'', Vanessa in the superhero comedy franchise ''Deadpool'', Jessi ...
as
Cristina Ferrare
Cynthia Cristina Ferrare (born 1950) is an American former fashion model, actress, author and talk-show host. She had lead roles in several films in the late-1960s and early-1970s, including the comedy '' The Impossible Years'' and the Western f ...
*
Josh Charles
Joshua Aaron Charles (born September 15, 1971) is an American actor. He is best known for the roles of Dan Rydell on '' Sports Night; '' Will Gardner on ''The Good Wife'', which earned him two Primetime Emmy Award nominations; and his early wo ...
as Bill Collins
*
Dean Winters
Dean Gerard Winters (born July 20, 1964) is an American actor. He is known for his role as Ryan O'Reily on the HBO prison drama ''Oz (TV series), Oz'' and had roles in TV series'' Rescue Me (U.S. TV series), Rescue Me'', ''30 Rock'', ''Sex and th ...
as John Valestra
*
Michael Rispoli
Michael Rispoli is an American character actor. He was a contender for the role of Tony Soprano in the HBO television series ''The Sopranos,'' but was ultimately cast as Jackie Aprile, a recurring character in the show’s first season. Rispo ...
as Jim Hoffman
*
Jason Jones as Jerry West
*
Dana Ashbrook
Dana Vernon Ashbrook (born May 24, 1967) is an American actor, best known for playing Bobby Briggs on the television series ''Twin Peaks'' (1990–1991, 2017) and its 1992 prequel film '' Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me''.
Early life
Ashbrook was ...
as Ben Tisa
*
Josh Cooke
Joshua Gregory Cooke is an American actor, songwriter, comedian and musician.
Personal life
Cooke was born in Philadelphia and attended Harriton High School, a small public high school in suburban Rosemont. He was a member of Harriton Theater ...
as
Howard Weitzman
Howard Lloyd Weitzman (September 21, 1939 – April 7, 2021) was an American entertainment lawyer active in matters ranging from intellectual property and entertainment issues to family law and estate issues. He was notable for representing Micha ...
*Sean Cullen as Roy
*William Hill as GM executive
*Eli Tokash as Zach DeLorean
*Kayla Foster as Colleen
*Grayson Eddey as Zach DeLorean
*Porter Kelly as Court clerk
Interviews for the documentary segments include Baldwin and Baccarin, as well as Bill Collins and Zach DeLorean.
Release
The film premiered at the
Tribeca Film Festival
The Tribeca Festival is an annual film festival organized by TriBeCa Productions, Tribeca Productions. It takes place each spring in New York City, showcasing a diverse selection of film, episodic, talks, music, games, art, and immersive progra ...
on April 30, 2019. It was released on June 7, 2019, by
Sundance Selects, and was given a
limited release
__FORCETOC__
Limited theatrical release is a film distribution strategy of releasing a new film in a few theaters across a country, typically art house theaters in major metropolitan markets. Since 1994, a limited theatrical release in the Unite ...
in the UK on July 19 through
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Ameri ...
.
Home media
Shout! Factory
Shout! Factory is an American home video and music company founded in 2002 as Retropolis Entertainment. Its video releases include previously released feature films, classic and contemporary television series, animation, live music, and comedy ...
released the film in the United States and Canada on
DVD
The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...
and
Blu-ray
The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of sto ...
on October 1, 2019. It was released in the United Kingdom on digital download SD and
HD on July 28, 2019.
Reception
Box office
''Framing John DeLorean'' has grossed $145,626 in the United States and Canada, for a total worldwide gross of $145,626 against an unknown production budget.
Critical response
On
review aggregator
A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The website's critical consensus reads, "Stranger than fiction and just as engrossing, ''Framing John DeLorean'' tells its incredible true story in appropriately freewheeling fashion." On
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
, the film has a score of 67 out of 100, based on 17 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
Owen Gleiberman
Owen Gleiberman (born February 24, 1959) is an American film critic who has been chief film critic for ''Variety'' magazine since May 2016, a title he shares with . Previously, Gleiberman wrote for ''Entertainment Weekly'' from 1990 until 2014. ...
of ''
Variety
Variety may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats
* Variety (radio)
* Variety show, in theater and television
Films
* ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont
* ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
'' wrote: "An absorbing documentary, with Alec Baldwin popping up in dramatic re-enactments, adds new insight to the inspiring and scandalous saga of John DeLorean, the auto magnate who got too high on his dream."
Glenn Kenny for ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' wrote "Framing John DeLorean tells a quintessentially American story of ambition and greed, with plot twists a fiction writer might consider outlandish." Allan Hunter, writing for ''
Screen International
''Screen International'' is a British film magazine covering the international film business. It is published by Media Business Insight, a British B2B media company.
The magazine is primarily aimed at those involved in the global film business. ...
'', said, "The film is hugely impressive. DeLorean is a persuasive advocate of his own greatness, the hero of his own narrative". Adding "Baldwin provides a running commentary on DeLorean’s nature and motivations, while we witness Baldwin being fitted with prosthetics and the jet black caterpillar eyebrows that were a DeLorean feature. All very meta but perhaps not entirely essential."
In contrast, Rafer Guzman of Newsday called it "an uneven blend of fact and fiction", noting that "scenes are really just elaborate re-enactments that distract us and stop the flow of information. Even less welcome are several “meta” moments in which Baldwin pontificates about the man he's playing"
'Framing John DeLorean' review
, By Rafer Guzmán , 12 June 2019
References
External links
* {{IMDb title, 6256978, Framing John DeLorean
2019 films
2019 documentary films
American documentary films
IFC Films films
2010s English-language films
2010s American films