Valvoline and Coca-Cola proudly bring you this Italian softcore porn tale of a stud race car driver trying to qualify for international competition while at the same time trying not to qualify for a sexually transmitted disease!
But surely the Valvoline and Coke signage strewn throughout such famous scenes as the opening strip tease in the garage where the woman was wearing a racing helmet and the diner where the washed up racer and his sexy daughter hung out is just director Andrea Bianchi trying to give his lusty take on Days of Thunder some semblance of realism, but without obtaining the permission of these two fine companies.
After all, why would family friendly motor oil and soda pop concerns want to be associated with a project where the main character is fingerbanging his rival’s girlfriend, but gets caught by the girl he really loves and laments, “now what’s she going to think of me? Ah, who cares!”
While I was admiring Bianchi’s guerilla-style filmmaking for be willing to risk the wrath of two multinational corporations and their legal departments just so that his Formula 3 boob and bang fest would be that much more authentic, the closing credits rolled and thanked Valvoline, Coke and a couple of other companies! I wonder which former employees in the marketing department signed off on that?
Sure, maybe they were a bit derelict in thinking that the chance for some product placement in a film whose only tie-in merchandise might be the “Frank and Jenny Shower Screw Playset” but can you really blame them for taking a chance if they were familiar with Bianchi’s past films? His zombie opus Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror is solely known for the adult midget playing a child who keeps trying to molest his own mother and Strip Nude For Your Killer pretty much speaks for itself.
With that cinematic resume though, how could any of us guess that his entry in the tits and tires genre would be so unambitious? No doubt hampered by a budget that only allowed for three topless girls, a few laps of cars driving around a track, and one hired tough guy to beat up our hero with a couple of punches to lamely discourage him from racing, Bianchi eschews anything but the simplest outline of a story – up and coming racer’s efforts to be a winner threatened by established racer’s schemes.
That description of the movie’s plot gives Hot Laps more credit than it deserves though. After having Frank beat up fails, the bad guy just repeatedly sends his girlfriend to screw Frank in an effort to find out the secret to his really fast car. He also arranges for some liquid to be spilled on the track during Frank’s time trials causing the dreaded spin out, but Frank recovers and still manages to qualify for the race!
But right before the big race someone has sabotaged his car by removing the air gizmo that gives his car its super powers! A silly conversation between the woman Frank has been having sex with the whole film and the woman Frank really loves takes place, making his true love realize that sabotaging Frank’s chance at racing fame may keep him safe, but won’t win his heart and suddenly Frank is back in the race!
We all know how it ends, right? Frank overcomes all odds, defeats the bad guy and goes on to the international circuit! Except the bad guy ran Frank off the track, Frank finishes second and is declared the winner when racing officials disqualify the bad guy! Nothing is more rousing than the underdog fighting against all odds and emerging victorious because his nemesis violated some rule and got DQed!
Bianchi does take time out from Frank playing grab ass with whomever to try and give us a little bit of backstory that explains the characters’ motivations. Like the former champion who helps Frank out and is the father of his true love. He was run out of racing years ago, but still runs the diner and has a garage at the track. Why was he run out of racing years ago? Who cares! What does this have to do with anything? Absolutely nothing except that Bianchi probably saw something like this in Days of Thunder!
And what about the track manager who has gambling debts? It was mentioned! And why does the bad guy push his slutty girlfriend into their pool not once, but twice? I have no idea, but that counted as two action scenes in Hot Laps!
Playing like one of those dirty movies Cinemax use to run in its salad days, but minus the production values, Hot Laps is a fatal pile up of dialogue that teeters between laughable and nonsensical, music that made think you might have accidentally started watching a real porno movie and performers who only succeeded in convincing you that they were prefect for such a film. On the plus side, it feels good knowing that if you ever bought Valvoline or Coke, you played some small part in making sure this raunchy racing wreck actually happened!
© 2014 MonsterHunter
