Reviews

Seriously with a 7.8 average on IMDb, this was a surprise to me when I felt asleep more than twice on this piece. Many will find this movie "artistic" and will critique that I should go rent Terminator 3 instead since I have poor taste ;).

But from my perspective, this is a slow... tedious... boring movie filmed with an amateur camera. The camera works are enough to makes one seasick since it wobble all over the screen which also convey a very "amateur feel" to the movie (something that was though, probably intentional).

The actors are OK, Bjork was interesting especially in her most intense scenes, yet the rest of the cast though are not particularly memorable.

For the music (as this is somewhat of a musical), I would presume you would *NEED* to be a Bjork fan to appreciate. Personally not liking her music in the least (feeling her voice is off-key and annoying), it is poorly executed with silly lyrics. Basically, every time the musical bits started I would sigh in despair.

*spoilers* Now, why is this not a "1" instead of a "2" to my opinion? Well, simply because of the "death scenes". Without revealing too much, but the two death scenes are... remarkable. The acting is top notch, the pain is overbearing, the situation completely dramatic and simply captivating in its horror.

My Conclusion is to NOT see this movie other than for these two scenes (the finale being particularly intense). If you're a Bjork fan though, you might like it a whole more than I did.

Well, every now and then comes a film like this. In fact it's something pretty rare nowadays sadly with all the soul-less big salaries special-effect ridden badly-acted Hollywood productions. But back in the 70's (and previously) movie making was made more as a love-child project than a way to make millions. Now bare in mind that this is no "Casablanca" or "Godfather" and maybe movie-critics will shun upon it seeing it solely as a dumb redneck flick. Personally though, not being a good ol' boy myself by any length I can say that this is one of the best and funniest movie I ever saw.

What "Smokey & The Bandit" achieves is to give you a 2 hour of pure stupid fun that only makes you want to grab an old muscle car and jump over a bridge yelling "YEEE-HAWWW". In the same sort of fashion as the Dukes of Hazzard did on TV, this is an American classic of the days when life was simple and care-free. When you could sit in a car with your legs up on the dashboard without any safety-belt or air bags keeping you secure. In a time where CBs were the craze and everyone could just grab the mike and say things like "lay it on me loud and clear, I'll catch you on the flip side coz it's a big 10-4 son". Basically, this movie puts you back in that historically important era of the happy-go-lucky freedom America. A time now long gone.

Burt Reynolds (with a mustache and a cowboy hat) is simply amazing playing the classical American-hero-who-gets-the-girl-at-the-end. Jerry Reed makes a surprisingly great performance as his trucking partner carrying the load of Coors beer in his Mack Truck. Sally Field does an O.K. job as the runaway bride who tags along and the ugly dog is a great addition to the team. As for the "opponent", Jackie Gleason makes perhaps the BEST representation of an idiot redneck southern sheriff with the dumb accent and everything. In fact, pretty much every character in this movie are caricatures of the good ol' south, and from a Canadian perspective it's always funny to laugh at this. ;p Bottom-line, if you want a no-brainer car chase movie about bootleggers trying to bring a truck-load of beers across the southern states chased by a bunch of dumb highway cops, this is the movie for you. I'd highly recommend grabbing a few beers yourself to watch it to complete fulfillment.

Oh yeah, and the bluegrass music is great too! So now that this review is done, I got one last thing to say.

"It's a big 10-4"