BREAKER! BREAKER!

d. Don Hulette (1977)

I like Chuck Norris. Not in an ironic, post-modern way, I mean I genuinely and sincerely like him. He was 37 (although he looks younger) when he made Breaker! Breaker!, a huge hit that was the start of almost two decades as a leading man in American films. He's a nice, all American hero: blond, quiet, capable, likable, he's respectful to the ladies and nice to the Village Idiot. He's slow to rouse, but dangerous to cross. It even takes him twenty minutes and a huge amount of provocation before he unleashes his first roundhouse kick.

Chuck plays a trucker whose little brother goes missing while driving a delivery of TV meals across the country. The kid has been tricked into driving through a corrupt one horse town, arrested on trumped up charges and given a choice: a $250 fine, or 250 days in jail. When he tries to escape by crashing through a window (he's Chuck's brother, alright), he is badly beaten, tied hand and foot and chucked into a barn. Big mistake.

The town is a Kritarchy, presided over by an erudite but alcoholic judge called Trimming, who is not only the Law and the Religion there, but also the store keeper, bar keep and everyone's Boss, like a Hillbilly Roy of Wroxham. He and his toothless serfs make a living crushing impounded vehicles and selling them for scrap, as well as making moonshine that they distribute by helicopter.

When Chuck eventually comes to town, driving a Ford van with an American Eagle airbrushed on its side, the whole dirty enterprise comes tumbling down. The Judge's men keep Chuck pretty busy, and there's a wonderful sequence where he walks along the unmade street being attacked by every guy in town, each of whom he beats up and throws to the ground. He's so assured in his mission he even has time to fall in love. Finally, fed up with the hassle, he finds his brother and a CB and calls in his truck driving pals, who trash the place and leave it in smouldering ruins. 

Chuck has a final face off with a fairly secondary figure who is elevated to chief villain at the last moment. They have a slo mo slug fest in a corral that is also home to an angry, tethered horse. When Chuck finally kicks the guy to whatever Valhalla hicks go to, the horse jumps over the fence, free at last. This is America, man, fuck with freedom, you'll get the flat sole of the wrathful boot of REAL justice.

Two additional features that particularly struck me about this homely but never hokey production: 

1. Chuck is no ordinary trucker, also being a Karate instructor who specialises in Third Eye Manifestation. He does this wearing a black open necked shirt with a gold sequined collar.

2. Secondly, the brilliant Jack Nance is featured in a supporting role. This film was made in 1977, the same year that Eraserhead was finally finished. Nance keep his cowboy hat on at all times, presumably to hide his Lynchian pompadour.  I miss that guy a lot.

A fun film, but then, hey, I like Chuck Norris. 

THE LAST AMERICAN HERO

d. Lamont Johnson (1973) 

Jeff Bridges will appear in pretty much anything these days, but there was a time when he had a very specific appeal, a lot of it based around his youthful, open faced appearance and total insouciance. That lack of concern was always difficult to read: was he smart or stupid; self-assured or disconnected; natural or wooden: was he even really there at all?

Here, he plays Elroy ‘Junior’ Jackson, a 'wild assed mountain boy' who is a prodigiously gifted driver and local enigma. Starting out by running moonshine (sticking it to the man is a vital element in these hicksploitation films), he needs to become  a breadwinner when his Pa is imprisoned for bootlegging liquor, so takes his fast wheels to market, starting off in demolition derbies before progressing to stock car racing and, ultimately, the most pointless of all American sports, NASCAR. Junior is just about the best there’s ever been at driving quickly around in circles for hours on end, and the film ends with him holding aloft his first championship trophy.

Loosely based on 50s and 60s NASCAR legend, Junior Johnson, the script was derived from an Esquire magazine piece by Tom Wolfe. The original prose was kinetic and hyperbolic, full of colour and energy, a gleaming sports car with a tank full of pop art and rocket fuel. Sadly, the film is a rather clunky hybrid, powered by red diesel.  At best, it’s rowdy and rambunctious, but is mainly light and inconsequential, largely down to Bridges under-written character and non-committal performance: Junior never really seems bothered, so why should we be?