Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.0

Trading Paint Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 28, 2019

Is it possible that Trading Paint is actually a sneaky parody in the vein of Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby? The answer to that hopefully obviously cheeky query is (probably?) an unmitigated “no”, but for those with a certain jaded sense of humor, Trading Paint may still provide an unintentional giggle or two. In what has become an almost unending litany of either lackluster “actual” film releases, or (more likely) straight to video offerings, John Travolta is back as Sam Munroe, an erstwhile racing champ who is managing his son Cam (Toby Sebastian), who is attempting to forge his own racing career. There may be no one named Ricky Bobby in this enterprise, but the film does in fact play out in Talladega, and both the opening sequence and some later race scenes do at least an adequate job of depicting what life is like in a smallish southern town where racing can be the locals' version of Friday Night Lights . The kind of overamped announcement crew mentions in this sequence (and indeed later) about a long running rivalry between Sam and the eventual winner of this particular race, Linsky (Michael Madsen), and the entire film revolves around this supposed decades long feud, except — the film never really addresses the cause of the dysfunction. Like so much else in Trading Paint, it’s simply plopped down, with the audience forced to accept it as is.

The opening race makes it clear that while Cam is an extremely gifted driver, he suffers from driving a car that has had repeated mechanical failures, something that deprives him of a win in this particular case. It’s obvious that Sam’s financial standing, while maybe not really periolous, is not exactly flush. Perhaps unsurprisingly, when Linsky offers Cam a chance to be on his team, Cam decides to forsake his father, setting up the supposed roiling conflict that informs the rest of the film. In the meantime, it’s disclosed through some brief if unsettling flashbacks that Sam suffered a tragedy long ago with his wife and Cam’s mother, though he’s trying to move on with a potential new girlfriend, Becca (Shania Twain). Again, the film just kind of seems to pick up on this relationship in medias res, offering little to no context other than a few passing comments in one of the first conversations between the two characters.

Things tip over into near melodramatic territory after a distraught Sam, who warns Cam that Linsky is a man without much of a moral compass, decides to get back in the racing game, and manages to beat both Cam and Linsky in a subsequent race. That sets Linsky into a vengeance fueled rage, with Cam stuck in the middle, deciding which path in life he wants to take — an honorable, if less “successful” (in terms of moolah), journey like his father has taken, or the “win at all costs” strategy promoted by Linsky. Three guesses as to what eventually happens, which is admittedly a “feel good” aspect to the film, even if it is also relentlessly cliché ridden.

Even more emotional turmoil is on hand with regard to Cam’s home life and, later, a devastating injury brought about by Linsky’s more nefarious tendencies. A vestige of Sam’s tragedy with his deceased wife is “resurrected”, leading to the expected happy ending. Trading Paint does okay in terms of its detailing of rather fractured relationships, and perhaps especially with regard to Sam’s own inability to deal with some of his own psychological issues, but the story is so rote and its presentation so predictable that my hunch is even ardent Travolta fans may be glancing at their watches with fair regularity to determine when this particular race is nearing its checkered flag.

Note: I was frankly kind of shocked to see my colleague Brian Orndorf had reviewed Trading Paint, since Brian's non-Blu-ray reviews tend to be for theatrical releases, and I had just assumed this was a straight to video product (the IMDb lists only an "internet" release for the film, so perhaps it streamed before Blu-ray release). In any case, Brian seems to have liked the movie at least a bit more than I did. You can read his assessment here.

Trading Paint Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Trading Paint is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. This is yet another offering where the IMDb offers next to no technical data, and I haven't been able to dig up even one word on the production side of things on the internet. I'm a bit hesitant to guess about the technologies employed here, since there are scenes that look a good deal "grittier" than others, with either real or digital grain, and then others which look much more like traditional digital capture. In any case, this is another presentation that offers excellent detail levels when lighting conditions allow. Quite a bit of the film takes place in some pretty dark environments, including racetracks at night or the inside of Sam's home, and those moments can be a bit hazy looking (the race footage in particular is kind of haphazard, probably by design, with lots of "jiggly cam" that tends to prevent fine detail from being able to really register). In brightly lit moments, as in a rather nice scene featuring Sam and Becca fishing by an incredibly scenic lake, the palette pops impressively and both general detail and fine detail levels look precise.

Trading Paint Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Trading Paint's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track is quite energetic in its racing element, with excellent panning effects and some good rumbly LFE. The surge of crowd cheers and intermittent chatter by either the announcers or characters actually engaging in dialogue are presented with good directionality and realistic immersion. The jangly, country-esque score is often winning (Twain contributes nothing, for those who are interested), and both source cues and underscore also fill the surround channels nicely. Dialogue is presented cleanly and clearly without any issues whatsoever.

Trading Paint Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The only "supplements" on this disc are trailers for other Lionsgate releases (including Travolta's similarly lackluster Speed Kills). I personally don't consider marketing tools for unrelated films "scoreable" extras.

Trading Paint Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Trading Paint is kind of sadly yet another middling effort from Travolta (who also co-produced). The story has been seen in countless iterations before, but the kind of hardscrabble use of dirt track racing gives this film at least a little distinctive flavor. Kind of interestingly, this was a Spanish-U.S. co-production, filmed in Alabama, a state that is experiencing a film industry backlash as this review is going live due to recent legislation involving abortion rights, so this may be one of the last shoots in the state, at least for a while. Even diehard Travolta fans may well be bored silly by most of this outing, but for those who are considering a purchase, technical merits (especially audio) are solid.