Framing John DeLorean

FRAMING JOHN DELOREAN is a title with double meaning as the documentary seeks to present the carmaker as a comprehensible character who can be explained in the context of his time, but also as the victim of both a government sting involving a cocaine deal and his own ego. Tall, lanky, self possessed DeLorean, who died in 2005 at the age of 80, cuts a dashing figure as depicted in old TV clips. Filmmakers Don Argott and Sheena M. Joyce observe that DeLorean's life already seemed like a Hollywood movie plot cliche in which the handsome protagonist bucks the stodgy corporation to heroically bring vivaciousness and creativity into car-making. Yet, they observe, despite numerous scripts and production deals over the years, scads of "Yet Another Unproduced DeLorean Project" never made it to the screen, making the case that perhaps the man's life was too big and too dramatic to make a good feature, leaving documentarians and archival clips to do him justice. DeLorean takes a shirtless run on the beach. He parties with celebs in Los Angeles. He marries a supermodel. As head of General Motor's Pontiac division, known then as a maker of cars for the older set, he creates the GTO muscle car, getting around the required chain-of-command approval for a new product by claiming the all-new car was just a "premium package" on an existing model. We discover a man who has a gift for reframing every context to show himself off in the best and most noble light. All of that crumbles when, having burned his bridges at GM, he creates the DeLorean Motor Company to build his dream stainless steel sports car -- fuel-efficient, sleek, durable, and fast. War-torn Northern Ireland offers him funding, land, a factory, and a workforce. He partners with a British engineer from the famed Lotus car company, betraying his long-time American designers and collaborators and revealing disturbing character traits. His disappointed son and somewhat-less-judgmental daughter weigh in, along with the abandoned engineers, Irish car factory workers, and prosecutors, all rounding out the portrait. A few scenes from the drama that was his life are reenacted with Alec Baldwin in the role of DeLorean.