''Madison'' is a 2001 American

sports drama A sports film is a film genre in which any particular sport plays a prominent role in the film's plot or acts as its central theme. It is a production in which a sport, sporting event, athlete (and their sport), or follower of sport (and the spor ...

film directed by William Bindley, about

APBA APBA (pronounced "APP-bah") is a game company founded in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. It was created in 1951 by trucking firm purchaser J. Richard Seitz (1915-1992). The acronym stands for "American Professional Baseball Association", the name of a b ...

hydroplane racing in the 1970s that is based on a true story. It stars

Jim Caviezel James Patrick Caviezel Jr. (; born September 26, 1968) is an American film and television actor who played Jesus Christ in ''The Passion of the Christ'' (2004) and starred as John Reese on the CBS series ''Person of Interest'' (2011–2016). He ...

as a driver who comes out of retirement to lead the

Madison, Indiana Madison is a city in and the county seat of Jefferson County, Indiana, United States, along the Ohio River. As of the 2010 United States Census its population was 11,967. Over 55,000 people live within of downtown Madison. Madison is the larges ...

, community-owned racing team.

Plot

“After an accident ends his career as a hydroplane pilot, Jim McCormick (Jim Caviezel) settles into life as an air-conditioner mechanic, husband and father in a Midwestern town. The population of Madison, Ind., is relatively small, but it has been a fixture of national powerboat racing for years -- although that's in danger of ending. With life in the town being bleak enough as is, Jim, with the blessing of his wife (Mary McCormack) and son (Jake Lloyd), enters the 1971 Gold Cup hydroplane race.”

Cast

as Jim McCormick *

Jake Lloyd Jake Matthew Lloyd (born March 5, 1989), also known as Jake Broadbent, is an American former actor who portrayed young Anakin Skywalker in the 1999 film '' Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace'' and Jamie Langston in '' Jingle All the Way ...

as Mike McCormick *

Mary McCormack Mary Catherine McCormack (born February 8, 1969) is an American actress. She has had leading roles as Justine Appleton in the series '' Murder One'' (1995–97), as Deputy National Security Adviser Kate Harper in ''The West Wing'' (2004–06), a ...

as Bonnie McCormick *

Bruce Dern Bruce MacLeish Dern (born June 4, 1936) is an American actor. He has often played supporting villainous characters of unstable natures. He has received several accolades, including the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor and the Silver B ...

as Harry Volpi *

Paul Dooley Paul Dooley (born Paul Brown; February 22, 1928) is an American character actor, writer and comedian. He is known for his roles in ''Breaking Away'', ''Sixteen Candles'', and ''Popeye''. Early life Dooley was born Paul Brown on February 22, 1 ...

as Mayor Don Vaughn *

Brent Briscoe Brent Briscoe (May 21, 1961 – October 18, 2017) was an American character actor and screenwriter. Early life Briscoe was born in Moberly, Missouri. After completing his education at the University of Missouri, Briscoe launched his career as a ...

as Tony Steinhardt * Mark Fauser as Travis *

Reed Diamond Reed Edward Diamond (born July 20, 1967) is an American actor. He is known for the roles of Det. Mike Kellerman on '' Homicide: Life on the Street'', Jason Pillar in season 8 of '' 24'', and recurring character Laurence Dominic on ''Dollhouse' ...

as Skip Naughton *Frank Knapp Jr. as Bobby Humphrey *

Chelcie Ross Chelcie Claude RossAccording to the State of California. ''California Birth Index, 1905-1995''. Center for Health Statistics, California Department of Health Services, Sacramento, California. Searchable at http://www.familytreelegends.com/records ...

as Roger Epperson * Jim Hendrick as Himself *

John Mellencamp John J. Mellencamp (born October 7, 1951), previously known as Johnny Cougar, John Cougar, and John Cougar Mellencamp, is an American singer-songwriter. He is known for his catchy brand of heartland rock, which emphasizes traditional instrument ...

as Narrator (adult Mike McCormick) *

Brie Larson Brianne Sidonie Desaulniers (born October 1, 1989), known professionally as Brie Larson, is an American actress. Known for her supporting roles in comedies as a teenager, she has since expanded to leading roles in independent films and blockb ...

as Racing Girl 2 *

Carl Amari Carl Amari (born August 20, 1963) is an American film and television producer, actor, director and syndicated radio host, creator of ''When Radio Was''. Biography Amari was born in Chicago, Illinois. He attended Triton College and Columbia Colle ...

as Jake the Banker *

Troy Waters Troy Weston Waters (23 April 1965 – 18 May 2018) was an Australian light middleweight boxer and member of the Australian National Boxing Hall of Fame. Waters fought for the world title three times during his career, losing to Gianfranco R ...

as Himself

Production

Background

, on the

Ohio River The Ohio River is a long river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing southwesterly from western Pennsylvania to its mouth on the Mississippi River at the southern tip of Illino ...

, has sponsored powerboat racing since 1911 and began holding an annual race called the

Madison Regatta The Indiana Governor's Cup (more commonly known as the Madison Regatta) is an H1 Unlimited hydroplane boat race held annually on Independence Day weekend on the Ohio River in Madison, Indiana. Madison has hosted the Madison Regatta annually sinc ...

in 1929. Beginning in 1954, the race became affiliated with the

American Power Boat Association The American Power Boat Association (APBA) is an American membership-owned corporation. In 1903, New York's Columbia Yacht Club had formulated a constitution for what ultimately became the APBA. It is the United States sanctioning authority for the ...

, held annually in July. Though Madison has a population of only 12,000, the Regatta maintains its place in the Unlimited hydroplane

American Boat Racing Association H1 Unlimited is an American Unlimited Hydroplane racing league that is sanctioned by the American Power Boat Association (APBA). Until 2009, the series was known as ABRA Unlimited Hydroplane, in turn renamed from APBA Unlimited Hydroplane in 2004. ...

series, whose other races are in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

Kennewick Kennewick () is a city in Benton County in the U.S. state of Washington. It is located along the southwest bank of the Columbia River, just southeast of the confluence of the Columbia and Yakima rivers and across from the confluence of the C ...

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...

, and

Doha Doha ( ar, الدوحة, ad-Dawḥa or ''ad-Dōḥa'') is the capital city and main financial hub of Qatar. Located on the Persian Gulf coast in the east of the country, north of Al Wakrah and south of Al Khor, it is home to most of the coun ...

. The Regatta regularly draws about 70,000-100,000 people and is a tremendous source of pride for residents of the town. Also significant is that Madison has the world's only community owned unlimited hydroplane, ''

Miss Madison ''Miss Madison'' is an H1 Unlimited hydroplane team. It is the only community-owned unlimited hydroplane in the world. It is based out of Madison, Indiana, a small town of 12,000 residents on the Ohio River which annually hosts the Madison Rega ...

''. The boat was traditionally near the bottom of the circuit. In 40+ years of racing, U-6 (its number regardless of its name) had won just six races before 2005. One of those was an upset in the 1971 Regatta, which is the basis for the movie. Making that victory even sweeter was that it was also for the APBA Gold Cup. Caviezel's character, Jim McCormick, was a real-life veteran racer and boat owner who drove ''Miss Madison'' in 1966 and 1969–71, then raced his own boat until seriously injured some years later. Many of his actual seven-man pit crew, including Harry Volpi, Bobby Humphrey, and Tony Steinhardt, were also portrayed in the film, while Steinhardt himself appeared as a fan in a cameo. With

's retirement from acting in 2001 (he completed filming his scenes the previous year), ''Madison'' stands as his final film to date.

Delayed release

Filmed in 2000 and completing post-production in 2001, ''Madison'' was selected to be the opening film at the 2001

Sundance Film Festival The Sundance Film Festival (formerly Utah/US Film Festival, then US Film and Video Festival) is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with more than 46,66 ...

. Playing to a standing ovation at Sundance, it was picked up for distribution by a company that went out of business, stalling its release. On April 22, 2005,

MGM Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 a ...

released the film worldwide, making it the last film ever released by the studio as an independent company.

Reception

The review aggregation website

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 ...

reported a 30% approval rating with an average rating of 4.50/10 based on 33 reviews. The website's consensus calls the film, "A predictable and heavy-handed sports drama."

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 ...

assigned a score of 43 out of 100, based on 15 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

References

External links

*
''Miss Madison: The Gold Cup Champion'' by Fred Farley
actual story of the 1971 ''Miss Madison'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Madison (Film) 2001 films 2001 drama films 2000s American films 2000s English-language films 2000s sports drama films American sports drama films Boat racing films Drama films based on actual events Films directed by William Bindley Films scored by Kevin Kiner Films set in the 1970s Films shot in Indiana Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films Motorboat racing Sports films based on actual events