Apparently, even the likes of Ryan Gosling isn’t enough to get movie viewers’ hearts racing in anticipation anymore.
Sarah Deming, a Michigan resident, filed a lawsuit against FilmDistrict, the distributors of the recently released Drive which stars Gosling. She claims that the movie’s trailer “promoted the film Drive as very similar to The Fast and [the] Furious, or similar, series of movies,” but failed to deliver on the adrenaline rush.
According to the lawsuit—and any number of movie reviews—Drive deals heavily with the emotional storyline of Gosling’s stuntman-turned-getaway driver, and isn’t simply a movie filled with driving scenes. Deming claims the trailer misleads viewers, and hopes to build a class action suit so that all moviegoers who feel cheated can file suit against other disappointing blockbusters.
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The trailer does contain its fair share of white-knuckle gear shifting (and a few heartwrenching scenes), but NewsFeed is having a hard time finding a movie trailer that dazzles audiences with subdued moments. Critics have praised Drive’s stylized action alongside appearances by Gosling and other actors known for the depth of their performances; and in an era where both critics and Metacritics are available online, FilmDistrict is planning to mount a strong defense against Deming’s claims.
One of which, for that matter, is equally extreme: that the movie “substantially contained extreme, gratuitous, dehumanizing racism directed at members of the Jewish faith.” The claim finds its only base in a racial slur uttered by one of the Jewish characters, who is complaining about anti-Semitic treatment by the mob. The character is seemingly as big a fan of anti-Semitism as Deming is. The character, played by Ron Perlman, is one of Drive‘s villains, but that has more to do with the fact that he’s firmly established as a tough mobster throughout the film than it does his Jewish heritage.
Irony comes in the fact that Deming is only demanding reimbursement for her movie ticket—a fee the Michigan movie theater has already offered to reimburse. In a suit arguing that a movie trailer is flashier than the story it sells, the circuit court judge might give Deming’s legal complaint similar reviews.