Movie Movie Podcast

So I haven’t made anything really senseless in a while so I wanted to make a road trip film about Food Truck purveyors and the adventure to get the prime location.

Truck U opens on John Martin’s famous Food Truck, “Food N Things.”  John is played by an irish accented Alec Baldwin.  He is seen as somewhat of a legend in the food truck industry.  He’s been slinging all types of foods for years and all the other food trucks and carts look at him as a god.  He’s got the best location in all of NYC, right in the middle of Times Square.  We see in a few interviews everyone loves him, so obviously he’s about to die.   He dies and this sends a ripple through the food truckers, but it also opens the opportunity for one of the other food trucks to take over his location.   The way this world works, the only way you can get to work out of a dead truckers location is to compete in a cross country food truck race where you have to not only make  the most profit, but also win the race.  So that’s the back story.

Enter Marty Martin. Yes, Marty Martin.  He’s John’s son and a struggling line cook in NYC.  He’s played by Breckin Meyer.   Marty is saddened at his fathers death and attends the funeral.  Afterwards, his mother, played by Kim Basinger tells him that John left him something.  Basically it’s a video telling Marty that the only person worthy of taking over the Times Square location is him.  Even though he’s never worked for himself, he knows that Marty has the creativity to pull it off. Marty decides to take his fathers truck, left to him in the inheritance, buy a bunch of food and get ready for the race.  He brings along his girlfriend Vanessa, played by Felicity Jones as moral support.

After a few weeks, Marty is ready and goes to the start of the race.  Basically it’s a rally race starting in NYC, going to Florida, New Orleans, Texas, Vegas, California, Kansas, Chicago, Boston and NYC.  The first cart back with the most money wins the spot.  TV crews even cover this event.  The other competitors are Stuart Worthington, played by Hugh Laurie (the bad guy), Jamal Crawford played by Derek Luke (the ally), Win Chin played by Ken Jeong (the weird one), and  Nancy Bart played by Melissa Leo (the tough old stereotypical lesbian-ish).  There are a few other randoms, but they don’t get lines.  As the race begins it’s clear that Stuart has the most advanced vehicle and is probably the best cook, so Jamal and Marty decide to team up, and help each other along the way (this is actually counterintuitive to the idea of the race).  The race starts and right off the bat Stuart, Win, and Nancy are in front.

Marty and Vanessa are having car problems right off the bat, and Jamal agrees to help them fix their truck in exchange for some of their fresh produce.  He says that no matter what happens he wants a good team to win the race and Marty and Vanessa seem like good people.  We see Jamal start telling a flashback about how Stuarts food is all overpriced, and he plans to win by seducing people with his Brit charm.  Win’s food is all weird and odd and makes people sick, and Nancy’s food is pretty good, but not good enough to take over for the legend John Martin.  So that’s why he hopes one of them win.  He’s been food trucking for years,  it’s in his blood or something.

So that was just an excuse for exposition.  Now we see Marty and Jamal making their way to FL.  They are last but people really love their food.  Marty’s take on classic american, and Jamal’s soul food (yup) really are a hit with the South Beach patrons, but thought their food is good, they are in last place.  We now see a montage of them making in through other states, so to advance the film to California, where Marty, with Jamal’s help catches up to Stuart.  We find out here that Stuart paid Nancy to mess up Marty’s truck and Win to steal Jamal’s produce.  Marty gets in Stuart’s face and said he may have gotten in their way before, but they are going to let their food speak for itself.  Everyone starts selling on Venice Beach and everyone is loving Marty’s stuff, but Stuarts is so fancy and expensive, that he’s making more money yet again.  It continues like this until we get to back NYC .

So now that we know good guys are good and bad guys are bad it’s time for one last food competition right near the times square spot, and John appears in the clouds to Marty.  He says that it doesn’t matter if he wins or loses, cause we all know his foods the best.  Jamal and Vanessa tell him he’s the only one who can beat Stuart, but he’ll have to raise his prices.  Marty says no.  He says if he does that he’s no better.  He ends up serving way more people than Stuart, but loses yet again due to Stuart’s crazy prices.  Marty admits defeat, but he knows he won something better, (the newscrew is here by the way).  He says he won the respect of the people who eat his food.  He says that food trucks have been fighting each other for years and for what? So they could be the best?  He says that he imagines a world where all the food trucks come together and join together, instead of tearing each other apart.  The speech goes on and people cheer at the end, but Stuart says that doesn’t matter cause he lost.   But then Win lets it slip that he was paid to sabotage the other trucks in the race by Stuart and Stuart is not only disqualified, but all the extra’s with food trucks converge onto him and chase him.  Marty looks over Stuart running, gives him the finger and says “Truck you!” before kissing Vanessa.  That means the real winner is Marty.  Jamal congratulates him and begins to walk off, but Marty says he couldn’t have done it (whatever it is) alone, and says he deserves the win almost as much as he.

We cut to two months later and Marty and Jamal have opened up a series of smaller food carts in that area, so that people can try all of the great food options from all over NYC.  Even Win and Nancy have come together to join them.  We see John Martin looking up in the sky again proudly.

The End.