Speed Kills
 

Has anyone seen the trailer for "Speed Kills" John Travolta plays Don Aronow even though they call him Ben Arownof Looks decent enough brings back the history of Thunder boat row & The Blue Thunder 39 Cat ( Of which mine was sold for private use)
should be a good movie for us old school guys....i would be interested in what Brownie has to say about it

just seen it but is not in theaters near me yet

November 18th is the latest word on the theater release. It's been out on Virtual Reality 360 for download since May. Haven't watched it, and out of respect for late Don Aronow I won't watch the film either. Seen the trailers and read reviews about the film and though the film claims to only be inspired by the life story of Don Aronow, it is i.m.h.o. not good enough of an excuse to create a film that basically don't show him in a more positive light than this. The 'Speed Kills' book left a bad taste in my mouth and therefore I will not watch the film. Nobody is a saint, and I have a feeling that Don Aronow was a little bit to tough in business for some to deal with, and to create a character, inspired by Don Aronow's amazing life, look like a morally weak and questionable guy doesn't fly with me. Spend Your money on Allan 'Brownie' Brown's book "Tales From Thunderboat Row" and get to re-live the era with a smile on Your face.
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No, I did not know Don Aronow personally. Have spoken to his son Michael a couple of times and found him a very humble, kind person. Now what played a larger part on my opinion is that I spent quite a bit of time over the years speaking to Don's best buddy, journalist and author John O. Crouse, and he told me about Don as a human being. Additional input has been from Swedish friends in common that spent quite a bit of time with Don during the 60's and early 70's on the racing circuit. Everybody has labeled Don Aronow a gentleman and wonderful person to be around, and I'm truly sad that He didn't get to enjoy a longer life.

Call me crazy.. But did Don not have a habit of sleeping with other dude's wives? Setting up people to fail in business dealings? I love the legend man.. One of the coolest guys ever. Clearly had a certain thing to him. I am not saying he deserved his fate, but people don't like being on the sh!t end of those things. Especially those on the fringes.

I'll watch the movie with a grain of salt. But hey.. Not everyone sees the world the same way I do.

Look at you son....wow!
As for Don setting up people to fail, imho that is not the case. You have to understand just because today we think of these companies as world wide names, back then they were tiny little business on 188th street in little buildings and big parking lots with a cannel out back. Donzi's were not being pumped out by the thousands. They were in the low hundreds and out of that they had to pay the dealers, the sales guy, the people that built the boat, the lights and don't forget most of all the race team. These boat companies (that had big race teams) were rich guys hobbies and when it came time to make it a boring business that made money the fun was gone and it was time for Don to move on. The problem with Don leaving, the company didn't have Don the sales guy, face, race boat champion, etc, etc anymore. The magic was not the company. It was Don. Not saying people didn't over pay thinking they were gonna get that magic with the company but that was their fault.
Today it would be like someone creating some startup app or website. Sells it to someone (google, facebook) as fast as you can and go's on to do something else (another start up). People like Elon Musk don't run companies, they start them and other people run them. That's why his losing his mind.

????

I like Travolta and will definitely see this film. I don't think it will appeal to a wide audience and may have a limited theater release before going to DVD.

The probable I have with John playing Don is John is 64 years old. Don died when he was 59. How is John gonna play a younger Don without a lot of CGI?

John is exactly two days older than me! 2-18-54 vs my 2-20-54

US release date Nov 16th
https://www.powerboatracingworld.com...-release-date/

Met a guy at the gym this morning and he was in town for a break from making a movie in New York called...The Irish Bar.

We chatted a bit and I asked him if he knew of the Speed Kills movie. . No, had not heard of it, but told me that he thought it would be just like the movie he was working on.

By that he meant, that the movie will go into a few movie theaters at first, just to be allowed in the running for any awards it might claim and then it would go to Netflix or to DVD.

For The Irish Bar movie, they hired Al Pacino and Robert De Niro for the big names and then came up with a so so script and started filming. The method of delivery is so different today, the producers don't have to worry about getting in a a big movie chain for lot's of eyes to see their product.

I am not expecting much at all from Speed Kills. I will see it, but probably on a DVD when it comes out.

Sad as Don's real life story, is such a great Rags to Riches story about what was possible here in America at one time

ill watch it as a movie and try not to get to involved in the story line of what they portray the man as. i need to pony up and by brownies book.

Watch this↓

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I experienced the presence of DonAronow..... one photo shows him standing back, watching us on his "Garbrecht / Kieth Black/ Aronow " Unlimited tunnel boat experiment. I still own the "Speed Kills" book..... A lot of assumptions.... https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.off...5c351a43a8.jpg

I watched the movie tonight and felt it was okay....It made me feel glad that i own a piece of history.....From Thunder boat row, from that era. Its still solid and new 550 supercharged engines about to be installed. My question is where did they find the boat for the movie?
looks like the reg was MO 2279-FR. It had either TRS drives or Bravo # 2 drives.Not sure. Anyways watched it on VUDU cost me $7, so was well worth it .

Watched it last night, wasn't as bad as all the hype. I enjoy any movie with boating scenes. The race through the storm scene was pretty hard to watch but other than that it wasn't terrible. Someday someone that truly understands the story will step up and produce a much easier to watch version. It is a great story but "Speed Kills" ventured far from truth.

That engine cover looks familiar.......latest Fountain Kilo boat. Did it work better for Aronow/ .LOL.

You forgot to mention that he also sold boats to known drug runners, and then decided to rub elbows with HW and sell boats to the Customs Service. :party-smiley-004:

Back in the day, ( '70's & mid '80's ).... I would hear conversations from powerboat guys..... Don would sell Cigarette to some rich guy who wanted to brag that they " owned Cigarette "..... then buy it back for a profit.... then do it again. I also would hear about drug runners complaining that the boat was not as fast as DEA boats. Don would remind them that " You guys are carrying tons of "stuff" in the boat, where the DEA only had fuel".
Even though the DEA was bugging him, I heard that his death was due to "sleeping with the wrong guy's wife"...

But this is what I heard, NOT what I know. He was still a genius. ( Like Picasso...... quite colorful ...... as are many famous personalities )

Quite the gentleman when I met him at our Unlimited Hydroplane race in San Diego with the "Aronow Unlimited" tunnelboat.

Watched the movie this evening...interesting take with some liberties on the truth, but worth the watch fro $7. I agree with the above post, if you aren't familiar with the facts, the movie was a bit difficult to follow...or possibly, knowing the facts made it difficult to follow because we're looking for things that actually happened, but weren't shown. The character development was just OK in my opinion...it showed Don a mans man and the struggles he had with trying to do things himself and without the mafia ties...so I don't think it shed him in poor light...at least not too poor of light. I was boggled why some names were changed (Don, Ben, etc), but Lanksy's name was used.

It was truly a shame that Don was killed, he had a lot more to offer the offshore powerboat industry as a whole...would be interesting to see where he would have taken things...I guess Reggie really filled in the mystique in his absence.

In the grand scheme of things the Fast and Furious movies were more enjoyable from a gear head standpoint. Even if much of F&F was silly talk, at least they were working on cars, talking technical at times etc. There was zilch of that in Speed Kills which left much to be desired. Some technical talk about the hulls, engines, etc. would have made it much more interesting and a better representation of Don's offering to the industry. Couldn't care less that he cheated on wives or stole women from sultans, cheap filler. Moreover, the cinematography of the big storm in the Miami to Nassau race was utterly horrible, unrealistic and of course not survivable for a ship let alone a 30' Cig Boat.

What else would you expect from Hollywood..... a shallow movie. Many of Hollywood's movies are made to give themselves a paycheck... not for us.

They work "hard" on the trailer......only...... ( pun )

I haven't been to a movie theater in 10+ years due to exactly what you describe.

Keith

( Kinda off-topic)...... With today's 60" TV's & my WONDERFUL Bose sound bar & sub, who needs to waste stupid dollars at a theater anyway?
Plus, I can re-live the old fashion "intermission " and go out for a cigar!! :cool-smiley-027: