Preston Tucker (Jeff Bridges) is an engineer designer in Detroit. During WWII, he designed a fast armored car which was rejected but he does earn a small fortune producing his aircraft gun turrets. With his wife Vera (Joan Allen),son Preston Jr (Christian Slater),and others, he decides to build his revolutionary car of the future but he faces savage backlash from the big three Detroit carmakers and government officials as well as a backstabbing board.

Director Francis Ford Coppola is all about ingenuity and the underdog. Despite its ending, the movie is upbeat and old fashion in its feel good sensibility. It's a lesser known entrepreneur but it is very much a heroic American story. This movie could have been done by Frank Capra. This is for car fans and anyone rooting for the dreamer.

Francis Coppola had ambitions to take on the major studios and failed.

His experience lead him to make the film of Preston Tucker who wanted to make better and safer cars after World War 2 and failed as the big boys of the motor industry flexed their muscles and crushed the little guy with big ideas.

The film was a hit with the critics but failed to gain much headway with the public. It is beautifully filmed like a homage to those Preston Sturges films and the colourful Douglas Sirk films.

It has a wonderful zippy script and a mesmerising performance from Jeff Bridges who should had got an Oscar nomination.

Bridges brings a lot of pizzazz to a guy with big ideas and a big drive. He is ably supported by Martin Landau, Joan Allen, Frederic Forrest and even his own father, Lloyd Bridges turns up as a sinister politician.

It is heartbreaking to see such dream and ambitions crushed by government and big industry and it's a theme revisited by Martin Scorsese when he later made The Aviator, the biopic about Howard Hughes, a character who also features in this film.

This is surely one of Coppola's most underrated film's and one of Bridges best performances.

Preston Tucker - I never knew him. Well before I watched this movie and I'm guessing I still don't know him entirely. But now I know of him and what he did for cars. Incredibly, but I guess because I'm not a big car guy, it's not really surprising I never heard of him.

Jeff Bridges plays him with gusto, but even the smallest parts are casted quite nicely. The drama is real life but might be heightened a bit for better effect. A period piece with a structure you might be familiar with, but done very nicely. The movie works on many levels (man with a dream fights against all odds) ... Drama and a very good one at that