Framing John DeLorean

Re-enactments are nothing new to documentaries. It can be a useful tool in coloring in parts of the story where there isn’t video footage, or a talking head won’t suffice. Framing John DeLorean uses them, but then goes multiple steps beyond: it casts name actors (Alec Baldwin and Morena Baccarin), and has behind the scenes footage and talking heads from them about their experience portraying the automaker and his supermodel wife. This is the fundamental flaw with FDL: there’s just as much focus put on MAKING the documentary and how these actors feel about it as there is on the actual subject. I don’t care about how Alec Baldwin felt or what he thinks was going on in DeLorean’s head. It adds virtually nothing to the proceedings. What’s worse, the tonal whiplash of these hammy scenes doesn’t mesh with the real interviews and archival footage. The acting is Unsolved Mysteries-level corny. Also not helping matters is the end of the movie, where an on-screen message says that the documentary took liberties with history, including making up scenes and compositing “characters”, which throws the whole thing’s validity into question. WHY DO THIS FOR A DOCUMENTARY?!? It really hurts the overall product, especially when there’s good stuff to be had. Seeing the rise of DeLorean at GM, his hubris in trying to out-maneuver the execs and how it got him broomed, the follies of starting DMC, and the financial and legal issues in the aftermath. Former colleagues, FBI investigators, DeLorean’s kids … there’s more enough story for the movie to stand on its own without embellishment or manipulation. You’ll still get something out of it, but the movie’s very design undercuts that.