Over the last few days, news has slowly surfaced from the Isle of Man that a Hollowood film is currently in production on the vaunted Mountain race course. Actor Channing Tatum has been photographed by fans attending the pre-TT practice week, as the star of movies like “Roofman” and “Magic Mike” portrays a beginner roadracer competing in the TT. For fans of what the Irish call “real roadracing” or motorcycle enthusiasts in general, this is definitely good news. Motorcycle racing receives very little mainstream coverage in the US media and besides a very well-done “60 Minutes” profile of the TT races that aired in 2024, there’s seldom a mention of an event we feel is the greatest motorsports show on Earth. The Tatum flick, apparently titled “Isle of Man” is being produced by serious motorcycle enthusiast and all-around gearhead Brad Pitt and is slated to appear on Amazon Prime sometime in the near future, bringing this obscure competition into the living rooms and screens of people who otherwise wouldn’t even hear of TT racing.
Increased exposure is always good for the growth of any sport – just look at what 24-hour market saturation of soccer has done to that game’s popularity here in the US. My only hope- and a guarded one at that- is for this latest motorcycle movie to offer a more realistic portrayal of two-wheeled competition than the major studios usually produce.
Movie producers are paid to fill seats and generate ratings, so it’s no surprise that they can’t seem to grasp the excitement and thrills of motorcycling for what it is, rather than turning any theatrical production involving two-wheelers into a crazed, violent punch-up. I had high hopes that the film adaptation of Danny Lyon’s photo essay “The Bikeriders” would present a thoughtful, balanced chronicle of mid-20th Century biker life, but it was not to be. Instead, we got the same old stale, overly-macho crap about knife fights, shoot-outs and the sort of gnarly, overacted true crime theatrics that Hollywood has bene serving up since the days of “The Wild Angels.”
Meanwhile, ask most true motorcycle enthusiasts which recent film most realistically captured the exhilaration of motorcycling and they’ll mention “World’s Fastest Indian,” a movie that offered thrills, complex character portrayals and an intelligently-written script while eschewing all the gangster stereotypes too often rolled out by filmmakers.
Who knows- Brad Pitt’s F1 flick turned out to be a fun, well-presented piece on the top levels of car racing, so there’s hope that the first theatrical TT movie since “No Limits” back in 1935 might turn out to be worth seeing.
