Matthew Stechel
Wonderfully 70's movie! Everything about it screams the mid 70's and you know what? Its all the more engaging for it! This NEEDS to be on DVD (its Sony/Columbia which gives me hope that it might one day see release on their Midnite Madness line of DVDs.) The story is a little confusing--but the movie is so fast moving and so colorful and so involving---the fact that the story keeps flipping the position of whether Jan Michael Vincent is in or out of the corrupt organization who keep alternatively trying to kill him and employ him (sometimes at the same time) just adds to the movie's charm! (really quickly the story is Jan Michael Vincent is a back from 'Nam truck driver who goes to work for a corrupt organization and rebels against their corruptness--he wants to unionize and only haul what he wants to haul--not the illegal contraband that his bosses want him to traffic in----and his bosses in turn try to kill him, his wife, and just about everybody else who happens to be driving on the road around him---that's it----Jan tries to testify in court about their corruption, but that doesn't really matter--because a couple of scenes later--he's back to driving his truck for the very same guys that he was just testifying against---what? exactly!) Story is really just an excuse to see Jan behind the wheel of a big rig while other big rigs try to oust him off the road.Its pretty awesome actually. There are a number of very well shot sequences---the first time Jan Michael has enough of his bosses b.s.--and they fire him---he marches back in his bosses' office with a gun--he forces them to give him work at gunpoint! Its a very well done sequence (although if you stop and think about it given the plot as its unfolded it doesn't make a whole Lotta sense--but hey A Man's Gotta Work And Put Food On The Table Damnit!) And Then They Drive Him Too Far--which leads to a very depressing ending--but an awesomely depressing one!!!! I won't ruin it--but its awesome! Seriously if this was on DVD--I think i would've bought it already---i wanted to see it again immediately after the end credits rolled---so Columbia get on it!
Woodyanders
One of the earliest -- and hence best -- of a handful of 70's trucker movies, a once quite hot, but now hopelessly passé sub-genre which beget a mixed bag of films which includes the stellar Claudia Jennings vehicle "Truck Stop Women," the not half bad Peter Fonda pic "High Ballin'," the great'n'gritty overlooked sleeper "Road Movie," Sam Peckinpah's excruciatingly stupid "Convoy," the alarmingly atrocious Chuck Norris chopsocky turkey "Breaker! Breaker!," and the sturdy made-for-TV item "Steel Cowboy." Jan-Michael Vincent, whose career in the Me Decade was all over the map, peaking with "The Mechanic" and "Big Wednesday" and hitting a wonderfully wretched all-time low with the gloriously godawful post-nuke sci-fi atrocity "Damnation Alley," here gives one of his strongest, most convincing and engaging performances to date as Carrol Jo Hummer, an earnest, moral, youthful independent Diesel driver who finds out that his employers are crooked bastards who sell illegal contraband on the side. Greatly appalled by this discovery, Hummer decides to blow the whistle on the entire unlawful business, becoming a modern-day folk hero in the process and subsequently putting both himself and his plucky wife Jerri (a stand-out portrayal by the always fine and assertive Kay Lenz) in considerable jeopardy. Director Jonathan Kaplan, who was then on a real B-movie roll churning out such kick-ass exploitation flicks as "Night Call Nurses," "The Student Teachers," and "Truck Turner" on a regular basis, hits a brisk, solid groove at the very start of the film and masterfully sustains it to the thrilling end, expertly milking the forever effective and appealing "one lone little man against the big, bad system" populist hero subtext in Ken Friedman's tightly efficient script for maximum socko entertainment. Kudos also to the exceptional supporting cast ridden with familiar film faces: the late, great, ever-delightful Slim Pickens as corrupt truck stop manager Duane Haller, L.Q. Jones at his most sublimely slimy and serpentine as head heavy Buck Westle, Martin Kove as one of Westle's thuggish goons, R.G. Armstrong as a shifty, manipulative prosecuting attorney, veteran character actor Don Porter as the smug CEO who's running the whole no-count operation, frequent Kaplan pic co-star Johnny Ray McGhee as an angry black trucker, Sam Laws as McGhee's rascally lovable ol' coot pop, and the irreplaceable Dick Miller as fidgety, peppery gear-jammer R. "Birdie" Corman. Further enhanced by Fred Koenekamp's crisp, inventive cinematography, David Nichtern's stirring score, and Valerie Carter tearfully warbling the marvelously mawkish country-and-western weeper "Drifting and Dreaming of You" all of three times on the soundtrack, "White Line Fever" gets a hearty ten-four from your good buddy film critic as quintessential 70's drive-in cinema at its most bluntly exciting and unpretentious best.
vfuess
This movie gave a slightly glamorized (and dirty) view into the world of the American trucking industry circa 1973-75. Without crossing over into making a film only truckers and their kin would enjoy, they kept the story and the action fast-paced yet clear as to what is happening unseen. It's not a "CB Fad" movie. A very "Americana" type film which gives a terrific look at the middle American fighting for himself and his ideals. Even though it is a semi-cheesy "B" movie by any standard, the characters are easily related to and the storyline is easy to get involved with, and the action is fun without getting too excessive (gee- a trucker who isn't a gravity defying martial artist!).Jan-Michael Vincent is at perhaps his best, with Kay Lenz as the perfect naggy whiny trucker's old lady- just cute enough to want to come home to. The musical score is cliché' by today's standards, but dead-on for that time. Some of the old country tunes actually sound pretty good even today (though the twang twang stuff, and the musically reproduced truck horns grew old after while).
CaRichar
This movie sucked production grade hole. It started to be about some in fighting among cheese ball truckers. It could have ended there. Instead, it becomes a romance story about the formation of a truckers union. One gets the distinct feeling the writer quit halfway through. This movie must have been a tax write-off.
