Tommy (Betsy Russell) was always a tomboy, so has grown up to be a mechanic with a great reputation for fixing cars. Not only that, but she designs her own engines as well and has built a racing car which she hopes will revolutionise the sport. But as it stands at the moment, she works hard on the vehicles brought into the garage and fills up the cars and trucks stopping for gas outside. It so happens that her best friend Seville Ritz (Kristi Somers), an aspiring star, pulls up there and gives her an update on how her career is going: she has an audition and Tommy goes along...
For many film fans the best thing about seeing the Saw sequels was that Betsy Russell resurfaced in them, returning to the public eye after what was gauged as far too long away. For them, it has been films such as Tomboy which had brought her to their welcome attention, and it's true she was a strongwilled, comfortable in herself and attractive presence in some pretty average efforts, as usually she was the best thing about them. But stardom failed to take for her career and she disappeared from the movie scene until Jigsaw's antics beckoned.
Tomboy is one of her definitive roles (if you can call it that), sort of an eighties version of Calamity Jane only instead of being a singing cowgirl our heroine is a mechanic, and as this is an exploitation film it's not only there to provide a spot of female empowerment, as it's also here to offer up a large amount of actresses, Betsy included, to take their tops off for the male viewers. This leaves us with a conundrum: if Tommy can prove herself the equal of men, why is she presented more or less as a sex object here? If you can get over any right-on qualms, then you might be able to answer that one.
One aspect standing out for British viewers is that Tommy's full name is Tommy Boyd, which is supposed to be a cute soundalike of Tomboy, but is also the name of an English television and radio presenter which may put uncomfortable images in their minds. If you can ignore that, then there's plenty of eighties cheese to be appreciated, starting almost immediately after the opening titles with a dance routine courtesy of Seville, complete with leotards and legwarmers. It's like The Kids from Fame all over again, I can tell you.
Something that is not like The Kids from Fame is the gratuitous shower scene straight afterwards, but you should be prepared for a lot of that kind of set up to follow. However, Ben Zelig's script is keen to show Tommy as more than a match for any man, so when she and Seville are sexually harrassed by a couple of creeps, they answer their question, "What would you say to a little fuck?" with the pertinent, "Goodnight, little fuck!" and zoom off into a car chase. To prove she is not a lesbian, Tommy gets love interest in the shape of star racing driver, er, Randy Starr (Gerard Christopher) who wishes to help her see her engine design realised, as well as seduce her, naturally. It all ends in droningly predictable fashion with a battle of the sexes car race, but this film's gender politics are somewhat uncertain. Nothing to trouble the great thinkers of our time, though, it's just a bit silly. Music by Michael Lloyd.
