Amongst director David Cronenberg’s other body of work, this film is a bit of an anomaly. Rather than a body horror film like Rabid or a psychological thriller like Dead Ringers, Fast Company is a straight drama, a familiar story about a race team fighting against greedy sponsors.

Story-wise, this film bears little resemblance to Cronenberg’s more well-known work. Ignoring the story, however (something very easy to do), Fast Company looks like a Cronenberg film. The same visual style, pacing, and camera angles seen in Rabid are visible here, more refined and polished. Fast Company is a great looking film, especially on DVD. Cronenberg has a real eye for composition and this makes the racing sequences dynamic and compelling.

The acting is quite good, with a number of distinguished Canadian actors performing well in supporting roles. John Saxon plays a good villain, chewing the scenery just enough to make his point.

The biggest flaw of Fast Company is easily the horribly dated soundtrack. The title song is laughable, something you’d expect to see in a Stone/Parker parody somewhere down the line. The film would be greatly improved with a new soundtrack or, even better, no soundtrack at all.

Finally, the ending of the film is ludicrous and seems to come out of nowhere. I’d expect to see something like this in a bad Dukes of Hazzard episode, not a Cronenberg feature.

Fast Company is a flawed, occasionally entertaining racing movie from a talented director, an odd anomaly in a lauded genre career.