'DUST TO GLORY' COULD USE LESS TALKING, MORE RACING.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Film Critic

YOUR ENTHUSIASM for Dana Brown's flawed and thrilling racing documentary ``Dust to Glory'' will depend largely on if you're one of those people who watches the Olympics for the human interest stories and not for the actual sporting events.

Because even though Brown and his team trained some 50 cameras on the world's longest, nonstop, point-to-point race, the movie spends more time talking about people living their dreams than it does showing either dust or glory.

And a little yakking goes a long way here, particularly since Brown is the kind of enthusiast who is more booster than documentarian. Narrating his own movie in flat, California cadences that bring to mind Kevin Costner, Brown bubbles and babbles on and on about the many dangers of the race and the special nature of the participants. Meanwhile, in the background, Nathan Hurst apes James Horner with an overblown, operatic score that is as wearying as it is unnecessary.

To tell Brown to shut up and let his pictures and participants tell their stories without all this gratuitous goosing would probably strike him as anathema. Brown's enthusiasm is understandable - there's a lot of inherent drama in this punishing off-road race that traverses numerous terrains and includes participants young and old driving vehicles of all shapes and sizes. And, to his credit, he does find some great stories.

There's the madman motorcyclist who wants to ride the entire 1,000 miles of the race by himself. Another family has three generations racing. There's a 16-year-old marking his first Baja 1000; there's Mario Andretti bouncing down a dirt road and running out of gas, and there are the tough guys driving unmodified pre-1982 VW Beetles, hard-core masochists whose goal is to simply finish the race.

As one enthusiast notes of the race: ``It's life. In one day, you get to experience everything.'' That's about as deep as the movie gets because Brown isn't one to offer much in the way of psychology or perspective. Instead, the film gives us some amazing footage of seemingly sane people doing crazy things interspersed with a lot of shallow filler that is as illuminating as peering into a cloud of dust.

Glenn Whipp, [phone]

glenn.whipp(at)dailynews.com

DUST TO GLORY - Two and one half stars

(PG: racing action and peril, some language)

Director: Dana Brown.

Running time: 1 hr. 34 min.

Playing: Landmark's Nuart Theater in West Los Angeles.

In a nutshell: Too much shallow yakking and a horrible score mar an otherwise high-octane documentary about a crazy off-road race.

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The world's longest nonstop, point-to-point, off-road race is chronicled in Dana Brown's ``Dust to Glory.''