Smokey and the Bandit

Every once in awhile I enjoy dipping into the nostalgia well and revisiting movies I loved as a kid. When I was five or six, Smokey and the Bandit (1977) was the most awesome thing ever; during my car-loving phase it played in an endless loop with The Love Bug and Knight Rider. Revisiting it all these years later, Smokey holds up much better than either of those. Full of action, humor and likeable stars, it's a fun romp if you can turn your brain off for a few hours.

Shady businessman Enos Burdette (Pat McCormack) wants a trucker crazy enough to deliver a shipment of Coors from Texas to Georgia in violation of innumerable liquor laws. Ne'er-do-well driver Bo "The Bandit" Darville (Burt Reynolds) takes on the job, enlisting his trucker buddy Snowman (Jerry Reed) and his hound dog Fred for support. Along the way, Bandit picks up Carrie (Sally Field), a runaway bride, and strikes up an instant rapport. Unfortunately, Carrie's fiance (Mike Henry) is the son of Texas lawman Buford T. Justice (Jackie Gleason), a vulgar, motor-mouthed and obsessive Sheriff who engages the Bandit in a high-speed chase across five states.

Smokey and the Bandit is easily the greatest thing to come out of America's late-'70s obsession with truckers and CB Radio, a hideous fad that spawned dozens of horrendous imitators like Cannonball Run, The Dukes of Hazzard and (God help us) Convoy. Smokey puts this countrified garbage to shame with genuine skill, verve and entertainment value. The film is decidedly lowbrow, but the good kind: its brand of simple-minded redneck anarchy is appealing to the car-loving kid in all of us.

The plot is thin, but Smokey's brand of entertainment doesn't need such refinements as coherence and artistry. The script is loaded with wit and charm, helped by the cast's marvelous chemistry, and the movie's so fast-paced it doesn't approach boring. Stuntman Hal Needham delivers assured direction, staging his chase scenes and crashes admirably, satiating the lust of car and crash lovers. And Jerry Reed's blue grass soundtrack, especially the addictive Eastbound and Down song (which I had lodged in my memory from age 5), complements the film perfectly.

Burt Reynolds, at the height of his stardom, makes a perfect protagonist for this redneck romp. He exudes effortless charm and good-natured charisma that makes it easy for the audience to root for him. Sally Field is equally game, trading sharp quips with Reynolds and more than holding her own. Jerry Reed is saddled with a thankless secondary role; his musical contributions are far more worthwhile. Jackie Gleason is hysterical: his over-the-top, bloviating caricature of cornpone Southern lawmen can't help but steal the film, and Gleason's largely ad-libbed performance delivers an endless stream of crude but hilarious one-liners ("I'm gonna barbeque yo' ass in molasses!").

So yeah, Smokey and the Bandit ain't bad for 96 minutes of Good Ol' Boy entertainment. If you're looking for a film about redneck truckers, you could do infinitely worse: I point you again to Convoy. You know we live in a fucked-up world when Hal Needham can best Sam Peckinpah.