Film Forum

U.S., 1988
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola
Starring Jeff Bridges, Joan Allen, Martin Landau, Frederic Forrest, Mako, Dean Stockwell
Approx. 111 min.

“The action starts in 1945, when Tucker, who is building an advanced tank turret for the war effort in a barn next to his family home in Ypsilanti, Michigan, sets in motion a bold plan to design, build, and market an entirely new kind of car—one that will be better than, and will successfully compete with, the ones made by Detroit’s Big Three automakers... Tucker makes himself a celebrity to advance the project, while an outside C.E.O. waters down his audacities, and he throws temper tantrums when his ideas aren’t being realized as planned... Coppola tells this story with grand exuberance without masking the personal and historical tragedies that it involves, including a mysterious sidebar involving Howard Hughes as a savior and a kindred spirit. Tucker’s story comes off no less than the story of other, more heralded films by Coppola—or than Coppola’s own story—as an exemplary American legend.” – Richard Brody, The New Yorker

Reviews

“The true story of a great American visionary who was thwarted, if not destroyed, by the established order.”
 – Variety

“Mr. Coppola has done things this fancily before, but never with so clear and moving a sense of purpose.”
 – Janet Maslin, The New York Times