The Cannonball Run
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Movie Reviews of The Cannonball Run
Movie Review: Cannonball Run
Summary: 5 Stars
I received this product quickly and it was just as promised. I like the movie, I have seen it before.Movie Review: One of the best movies ever made!
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a timeless comedy classic and is a must for anyone's DVD collection. HIGHLY recommended!Movie Review: So bad but so good...
Summary: 4 Stars
Cannonball Run is a guilty pleasure. No one would ever say it's a good movie, but it's a like train wreck, you find yourself staring. Burt Reynolds tries to live his glory days of Smokey and The Bandit, bringing along the same Director, Hal Needham as well as a slew of falling stars to prop him up. Its as if all of them knew their careers were sliding and it was one last ditch effort to make a great noise. Don't get me wrong, many of these people are talented. Lets explain the premise first. The 'Run' is an auto street (or highway) race, based closely on a real race that was run throughout the 70s that went from New York to California. It was highly illegal, and probably a lot a fun. There is even an appearance by one of the original drivers, Brock Yates, who is now an editor for Car & Driver Magazine and makes an amusing appearance as the MC, explaining how the race goes. Reynolds is JJ McClure, a former race car driver and mechanic who is the standing champ in the race. Eager to keep his title, he is desperate to win again. In this race though, that doesn't just mean going fast, anyone can go fast, but sooner or later, you will get stopped. JJ and his strange friend, Victor (Dom Delouse) adopt a personality of two paramedics driving a patient cross country. Apparently this worked in the actual race one year. The supporting cast of competition includes Jamie Farr as an overzealous Sheik in a hopped up Rolls Royce, Roger Moore playing a comic version of his James Bond character driving his popular silver Austin Martin, Mel Tillus and Terry Bradshaw playing a couple of southern boys cruising in a stolen race car and my personal favorite, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. playing womanizing, gambling hard drinking priests driving a red Ferrari (they aren't really priests). All this adds up to a movie where every scene you see a star. Dean and Sammy steal the show in almost every scene they're in, they are class acts adding something unattainable in most pictures of this caliber. The racing antics are not quite as funny as the beginning scenes where all the characters are introduced, but it is entertaining. The best part of the movie comes at the end though where the bloopers are shown during the closing credits. It's worth the price of the DVD alone. Don't expect a great movie out of Cannonball Run, all you can really expect is a good time, but isn't that what it's all about?Movie Review: I'm sure that doctor's a very sweet man, basically. But don't you ever tell me where you found him. Ever.
Summary: 4 Stars
The Cannonball Run was one of those flicks I saw constantly on TV growing up in the 80's. I think it was a law that all UHF or like Fox had to play it on the weekends at least once a month or something; this and flicks like Red Dawn or the Outsiders.
For me, this is the prime example of the type of flick that I'd buy in a heartbeat when I see it in the $5.50 bin at Wal-Mart, something that I know I'll watch at least once a year and just has a bunch of fun nostalgia memories to it. Though while I just showed it to a friend recently and was sort of disappointed by it (we watched this directly after Smokey and the Bandit which is a much tighter film, though it's the same principal creators and actor), I'd have to say this when I was a kid this was my favorite "grown up" movie. There's just something magical about the duo of Dom DeLuise and Burt Reynolds, between the appearances of "Him" and the relentless self-mockery of Reynolds, it's just gold to me.
Add to this Adrienne Barbeau's "Barbeaus" clad in tight purple Lycra, the Black Lamborghini, Jackie Chan, a silly cameo by Peter Fonda, the amazingly drunk and on-his-death-bed Dean Martin, and some really funny lines from the crazy Jack Elam as Dr. Nikolas Van Helsing and this is a comedy smörgåsbord. Unfortunately it is pretty choppy in terms of editing and flow (the cannonballers don't even start the race until like 50 minutes in) there is a lot to love.
If nothing else this flick was a labor of love for the writer, Brock Yates, and the Director Hal Needham (who organized and participated in the actual Cannonball Run race) which weird gives a little bit of credit to an otherwise insanely over the top madcap romp. In fact a lot of the background actors and most of the vehicles used were from the real race including the ambulance and the Ferrari. It's also one of five or so pairings Needham had with Reynolds in the 70's and 80's including Smokey and the Bandit I+II, Hooper, Stroker Ace, and the Cannonball Run sequel.
Movie Review: A blast from the past
Summary: 4 Stars
This is one of those wacky 70's movies with an all-star cast that became almost a staple of the time. With Burt Reynolds, Dom Deluise, Sammy Davis, Jr., Dean Martin, and Jack Elam in the starring roles, it served up some very funny comedy that I was surprised to find still holds up today. There are so many stars from previous years and decades in the movie that it's almost like they're getting together for one last silver screen reunion before retiring to rest on their laurels. The fact that the movie is one big farce and they probably didn't take it that seriously, either, probably helped, since it looks like everyone is having an uproariously good time while doing it. Some of the antics date the movie a bit, but still, it's all in good fun, and apparently the movie is based on real races that were popular at the time, although highly illegal.
I was pleased to see Elam get considerable screen time here. He was a real trooper who served tirelessly in supporting roles all his life and was always a class act even when he was a disreptuable bad guy (which he was most of the time). I remember Jack Elam most from the opening scene at the train station in Once Upon a Time in the West, but here he gets probably his funniest role as a wayward proctologist who's always brandishing his middle finger, causing the other actors to back away in fear, which was always good for a laugh. In the Once Upon a Time scene, I read that they smeared watermellon juice on his face to get the flies buzzing around his head to do that scene. His famous wall-eyed visage only made the doctor role funnier. Deluise, "the fat man who make everyone feel good," also gets one of his funniest parts. All in all, still a fun movie sporting many of the most famous shining lights of previous Hollywood decades.