If Red Line had put a hundredth of the money into hiring a writer has they did into the animation it wouldn't have bombed so hard. I liked the movie, it was fun and all and had some really stellar visuals, but no real story to speak of to really draw you in. Which was a shame because they had elements of a story sprinkled throughout, flashbacks to JP's past, his chemistry with that one woman racer.
But none of it came together to be anything memorable, storywise. Which lead to it being a massive money loser for Madhouse, contributing to their eventual bankruptcy.