The American Dream
This is perhaps the central theme of the entire film. We watch Preston Tucker pursue his dream to change perhaps the most American industry of them all, and his trials and tribulations are ultimately ones that are designed to make us ask whether the little guy is really given a chance to achieve the American Dream. To this point, Coppola believed that Tucker’s ability to simply build the car and show it off in public meant his dream had been achieved, while director Frank Capra turned down the project because he thought it was a story of a dreamer being stymied.
The Little Guy Versus the Powers That Be
In line with Frank Capra-directed films like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, we watch Preston Tucker go up against the senator Homer Ferguson. The senator knows that Tucker is out to undermine the dominance of the Big Three automakers, and we later learn that he sits firmly in their pocket. The big question throughout the second half of the film is whether a man can achieve his dream when there is a vast machinery working against him.
Crime Versus Character
We come to like the New Yorker Abe Karatz slowly throughout the film. We’re as suspicious of him as he is of Tucker early in the film, but he’s won over by Tucker’s vision, and we end up won over by him. So, when we learn that he’s an ex-con who went to prison for fraud charges, we’re presented with the question of whether he’s a good man or a bad man. The same question is effectively raised about Preston Tucker himself. We watched him partake in some unsavory marketing practices, but do we consider him a conman like the federal prosecutors accuse him of being?
Perseverance
This is one of Tucker’s finest qualities, and something that he instills in everyone who surrounds him. Despite production or promotion hiccups, Tucker perseveres and comes out an ever grander hero than before. The running joke in the film lobbed between Tucker and his engineers is who does and who doesn’t think it’s possible to build the car according to their scarce resources and strict deadlines.
The Father/Son Relationship
We watch Tucker’s son, played by Christian Slater, decide not to pursue college so that he can follow in his father’s footsteps and work on visionary cars. It’s a seemingly minor development in the film, but a significant one. Did you note how the film was “Dedicated to Gio, who loved cars”? Gio Coppola was Francis Ford Coppola’s son who died in a boating accident during the filming of Francis’s prior film, Gardens of Stone. Much like Preston taking on his son on as apprentice, Francis was training Gio as a filmmaker at the time of death.
Moving Fast
One of the first things we learn about Preston Tucker is that he built a vehicle for military use that was deemed too fast by the Army to be put on the battlefield. Speed is something Tucker prides himself on, and he seeks to make his consumer car fast too. Coppola takes the cue from his subject and makes for a fast film, using a camera that’s constantly in motion and editing together short shots. The kinetic film style whisks us through most of the film, and only ever slows down for the most dramatic of moments: Tucker’s self-defense in federal court.
Corporate America or Con?
As the film progresses, the ancillary question is to what extent corporate America is set up as a racket. We know that in the ‘70s, Coppola wanted to make a version of the film where Tucker was crushed and ruined for trying to overthrow the titans of the car industry, and even though the film ended up cheerier than Coppola may have initially planned, he nonetheless preserved the bits about the dark underside of corporate America. We never see any representative of the Big Three auto companies, but we know they’re at work via Senator Homer Ferguson. Ironically, Tucker himself is charged for conning investors, but Coppola expertly plays this plot point to make us ask whose actions are more unsavory: those of the upstart dreamer trying to fund a revolution in automobiles, or those of the most powerful corporations in America trying to crush competition like they were mosquitos.
